County to purchase park equipment, city to maintain it at
McCarthy Street Park
Hollister and San Benito County are teaming up to install
$70,000 worth of playground equipment at McCarthy Street Park,
providing a family-friendly play area in a part of town with few
such options.
County to purchase park equipment, city to maintain it at McCarthy Street Park
Hollister and San Benito County are teaming up to install $70,000 worth of playground equipment at McCarthy Street Park, providing a family-friendly play area in a part of town with few such options.
The equipment is being purchased and installed by the county with funds that will be reimbursed by the California Department of Parks and Recreation. The city will then maintain the equipment at the park, located near San Andreas School on McCarthy Street between Alvarado Street and Chappell Road.
“It looks like it’s going to be a real benefit to the community,” said Don Kelley, chairman of the county Parks and Recreation Commission. “It’ll be situated so we don’t take away from the open space element of that park and there’s really nothing over in that area of town where kids can play.”
Kelley said the play equipment will be similar to that installed at Veterans Memorial Park near the Hollister Heat softball fields. It will feature parallel bars and a climbing structure, among other items.
McCarthy Park used to have playground equipment, Kelley said, but it was removed years ago because it didn’t comply with Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements. The new equipment will meet those standards.
The city-county park partnership is similar to an agreement at John Z. Hernandez Park on Central Avenue, in which the two government entities worked together to upgrade the park.
Kelley noted that no general fund money is being used for the McCarthy Park project and that Supervisor Jaime De La Cruz recommended that unused county park funds be allocated to the project.
“We looked at this joint-use project to see if we can improve another area of the county that was lacking facilities,” Kelley said, adding that even though the park is within the city limits, it qualifies for funding from per-capita funds allocated to the county. “We felt that since we had the other park projects covered, it only made sense to do some sort of joint-venture since there wasn’t another facility in that area.”
