Change team hosts first community forum at clubhouse to gather
input
A dozen residents attended the first community forum last week
on the Dunne Park Restoration Project, the latest step in gathering
public input on what changes people would like to see at the
park.
”
We want to hear, if we are going to invest, what should we be
doing?
”
said Lisa Faulkner the project manager and leader of the change
team, a group of teens who are paid through the One-Stop Career
Center for their time on the project.
”
We want to develop some strategies to deal with some of the
barriers that might keep you from coming to the park.
”
Change team hosts first community forum at clubhouse to gather input
A dozen residents attended the first community forum last week on the Dunne Park Restoration Project, the latest step in gathering public input on what changes people would like to see at the park.
“We want to hear, if we are going to invest, what should we be doing?” said Lisa Faulkner the project manager and leader of the change team, a group of teens who are paid through the One-Stop Career Center for their time on the project. “We want to develop some strategies to deal with some of the barriers that might keep you from coming to the park.”
The Hollister Youth Alliance in August received a grant from the Health Trust of Silicon Valley to spend 16 months working on advocacy of the park. The $100,000 grant includes funding for enhancement projects, a survey of the community about what they want to see at the park and creation of an action plan for the future of the park.
After an initial observance of the park, in which the change team watched for positive and negative behaviors, the students went door-to-door to survey neighbors.
Faulkner asked those residents who showed up for the Sept. 17 meeting to talk about what parts of the park they use.
“It’s the best park in the city as far as I’m concerned,” one resident said. “I’m not sure why it has a bad rap. It has a bathroom, rose garden, places for kids to play, ball parks.”
Faulkner said that during the change team’s observation of the park, the playground and the tennis courts were the most used. But she added it was a small group of people who used them.
“Out of the houses that we surveyed, a majority say there is an element at the park that is a deterrent,” Faulkner said.
She added that there is a group of displaced people who spent time in the park when the change team observed it.
“It’s kind of the tip of the iceberg,” she said. “I think there are deeper issues here.”
Another resident said that she would use the tennis courts, but they aren’t as well maintained as the ones at the high school and sometimes there are stray dogs around it.
Faulkner said one suggestion is to replace the lighting at the tennis courts to make them useable in the evenings and to resurface the courts. She did stress that the only project that has funding now is renovations on the bathroom facilities. Other projects will move forward if grant funding is secured.
One resident noted that the park has a large barbecue area, but it is often occupied “by people who are not barbecuing.”
Faulkner shared some of the feedback from the door-to-door surveys.
“What we heard when we went door-to-door is that people wanted it to be like it used to be, when you could send your kids to the park,” Faulkner said. “They didn’t want rigid programming, but wanted kids to be able to go to the park for pick-up games – if there was supervision there, like these youth.”
Another resident suggested that if there were supervision present, they could check out equipment such as tennis rackets, soccer balls or other items to families who visit the park.
Faulkner said the group is looking at doing a simple business at the park that would sell fruit, and one of the questions on the survey asks about what type of packaging residents would want to see.
They also heard that people like the organized events such as Kids at the Park, Music in the Park and the Dog Days of Hollister.
“People just love the big events,” Faulkner said. “They feel safe to be out in the park.”
While some residents at the meeting suggested public artwork, another was concerned about graffiti at the park. Faulkner said the local gang prevention coordinator, Al De Vos, has offered to bring a juvenile workforce to the park once a month to paint over graffiti at the park. The group will start work in February.
The Hollister Youth Alliance, along with community partners including First 5 San Benito, the Hollister city council, the Hollister parks department, San Benito County supervisors, the Gang Prevention Task Force and the Community Food Bank will continue to seek grants to expand the scope of the project.
“The Hollister Youth Alliance has made this a priority for other grant options,” Faulkner said.
The HYA has already applied for another grant, and will hear back about it early next year. The grant will be used to improve the tennis courts and to continue the bathroom refurbishment.
At the meeting, Faulkner, who is a grant writer, also announced that the group may be seeking a two-year federal Housing and Urban Development Department Choice Neighborhood planning grant, if there is enough support from the community. Faulkner met with some groups this week to feel out how much support there is for the grant.
The grant funding will be important in how many changes the group will be able to make because there is a shortage of funding in the city and county. The overwhelming response from residents who were surveyed was that they do not want to see city taxes go up to make changes to the park.
“The grants are really competitive, but if we show our need is great and if we have our planning group put it on the forefront we could get it,” Faulkner said.
The change team will present the results of the survey and the public meeting to stakeholders from the partner agencies before beginning work on an action plan. They will hold another public meeting in November, with a date to be announced.
