• Parks Master Plan Workshop

I always expect a bigger turn out for such things. The only people that came were basically the same people that I've seen at the regular city meetings for the past year.

The meeting was very short. Assistant City Manager Dan York gave the presentation. Included was a display with nine proposed parks classified as "tot lots". Just to give you an idea how big that would be, Windsong Park is classified as a tot lot park.

There were also five proposed neighborhood parks (the purple asterisks).

After the short presentation, the public, all eleven of us, were invited to place green dots next to amenities that we'd like to see in a park.

I didn't get this part, because some of the things were as basic as restrooms, parking lots and picnic tables or as complex as a community center, a swimming pool or a skate park. I think the three dot idea would have worked better if 1,000 Wildomartinis had participated.

Like Dan said, some people aren't comfortable speaking up in public forums, so he'd like you to email any suggestions for the parks that you may have. Click here for his email address.

Though costs were not discussed tonight, my wife did get her hands on one of the price sheets that were set out for the public. If you haven't shopped for park amenities in awhile, you'll probably have a stroke if you look too closely at the list.

A Community Center is estimated to cost $1.6M, a pool comes in a $700k and the concrete skate park came in at $1.7M.

As much as I think our area could use a skate park, I'm thinking it is going to have to be put on the back burner... or more likely put into a cryogenic hold until money starts raining from the sky—as if it were September 16th all over again.

Hey, a bocce ball court costs only $20K. Let's just build a bunch of those and tell the skaters that playing an old Italian man's game is way cooler.

Assistant City Manager, Dan York, discussing the details.

If you missed tonight's meeting—and we know that you did miss it—there will be a repeat performance next week at the same time as part of the Parks Subcommittee meeting. Tuesday, October 21st, 6:30PM, Council Chambers.

Follow this link to the PDF of the presentation, complete with pictures and estimated costs.

The group looking at the various displays, placing green dots alongside the amenities they thought were best.

In the end, I was saying to another person there, "I wonder if this is the 100 year plan," due to the huge costs that would be incurred in building those plans out.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see Wildomar become more of a jewel than it currently is, with as many parks as other cities have, but it took a lot of sweat just to get our three small parks opened.

There's no way even 20% of the master plan will be put into place during my lifetime... unless the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation were to confuse Wildomar with a third world country and dump all kinds of generosity on us.

My foothold is tenoned and mortised in granite, I laugh at what you call dissolution, And I know the amplitude of time.

— Walt Whitman

Wildomar Rap would love to sponsor the first Bocce Ball Championship of Willy'Mar, so let's get those courts built.