Day 84: Picnic area still a shambles
It’s been nearly three months and visitors are still waiting for
improvements at the picnic area of Veterans Memorial Park.
Day 84: Picnic area still a shambles
It’s been nearly three months and visitors are still waiting for improvements at the picnic area of Veterans Memorial Park.
Though the park is surrounded by Hollister, it is technically part of the county. The picnic area of the park was maintained by the city in the past, but has also been the responsibility of the county maintenance department. After a tot lot was removed a while back, the picnic area became a place where adults came to drink and left behind broken bottles.
When the park was in its heyday, the neighboring Parkside neighborhood was developed, and the developer thought direct access to the park for pedestrians and cyclists would be a nice amenity to offer, recalls Marcelo Orta, who directs park operations for the city of Hollister. Simply put, the park is in the purview of the county and the walkway is the city’s headache.
At the time when we first ran pictures of the park, Orta talked about city budget cuts that led to the loss of staff members to maintain the park. Measure T, passed in November, could increase the budget for park maintenance, but that has yet to be decided.
The city’s parks operations fall under the Hollister Parks Commission, while the county’s fall to a similar condition. And there’s a bit of good news in this bureaucratic tangle. Don Kelley of Hollister is the chairman of both panels. Kelley can be reached via e-mail at
do********@ho*******.gov
.
