Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Dumped story on park improvements in Casa de Oro, San Diego County

This one was rejected because my editor sent somebody else to cover the meeting and was unwilling to warn me.



Valle de Oro Planning Group conducts special meeting on Estrella County Park improvements
by Jake Christie

On the second day of this year, the Valle de Oro Community Planning Group heard from two members of the San Diego Department of Planning and Development Services on the walking park on Estrella Drive overlooking Campo Road. Estrella County Park slopes off Estrella Drive and is shaped like a rectangle with a notch cut out of half of the left side; it is literally nothing but a field with a rough drainage culvert running through it  and a couple of signs on the street announcing that the field below is a park. The Otay Water District room where the VdOCPG meets was standing room only, but unfortunately this reporter was there to take video (which was eaten by his computer) and so no notes were taken. KFMB-TV sent down a cameraman and KFMB reporter Abbie Alford sat in the audience.

Robert “Bob” Yarris, Chair of the Casa de Oro Alliance group which has been pushing for improvements along Campo Road, spoke for the project to the planning group, but only as a member of the public and not as a presenter, and he also was interviewed by Alford afterwards. The improvements they want to do to the park will be to put in a walking trail and doing landscaping, but a major sticking point is that the plans drafted by DPDS did not seem to be Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) compliant.  VdOCPG Chair Karibia Baillargeon asked a number of questions, but the item was not up for vote, just presentation and discussion. One of the audience members, an older woman, said she had lived near the park for decades and was tired of its appearance.

The item will appear before the Spring Valley Community Planning Group on January 9th at 7pm in the same room, Otay Water District Headquarters, 2554 Sweetwater Springs Blvd in Spring Valley.

January, 2018


                         What the park looks like right now.

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