• Parks Visioning Workshop

Last night saw the first of several community meetings looking to shape the future 27 acre park near Ronald Reagan Elementary School. 

The location of the future park.

The attendance was sparse, I counted about 24 people in the room, and of that only half weren't either city staff or part of the team at RRM Design Group that has been tasked with designing the park.

The slide show presentation (video below) was about 24 minutes, which included a few basic questions and answers. From there, the group went to the various easels that were set up, to get a closer look at what RRM had prepared for the evening and to add their opinions to the mix.

Jeff Ferber speaks to the group as his associate Amanda Conaham writes down ideas.

Each person was given an envelope with four circle stickers in them. Blue, green, yellow and red. The blue sticker was to signify which type of "vision" one had for the park. The others were to signify which amenities each person felt most important for the location.

Many suggestions were made when it came to possible amenities that could be in the future park. The one that ended up with the most green dots next to it was: amphitheater.

The board filled up quickly.

If that is too small to read, the amenities that were proposed by the group included:
Listed as they were suggested
   • Parking
   • Restrooms (permanent)
   • Security at restrooms
   • Water Feature/Splash Pad
   • Skate Park
   • Pump Track 
   • Mountain Bike Trail
   • Amphitheater/Natural Amphitheater
   • Hiking Trails/Nature Trails
   • Walking Trails (paved)
   • Shaded Play Areas
   • Multi-use Fields
   • Senior Fitness, Fitness Stations
   • Snack Bar
   • Community Building
   • Kids Fishing Hole/Pond
   • Sports Lighting
   • Sports Fields
   • Jogging Trail
   • Disc Golf
   • Archery
   • Rubber Surfacing Trail
   • Tennis
   • Soccer
   • Swimming Pool
   • Basketball
   • Remote Control Field

Whew! If we were at the check stand with all those items in our cart, the bill would probably amount to eleventeen bazillion dollars. ☺

Deciding where to place those color coded stickers.

Another favorite display was the magnetic map. It was a bit like playing with colorforms back in the day (if you don't know what colorforms are, it's a designing game that kids played with before smartphones existed).

There were different amenities that were all to scale, and people took turns placing them where they thought made most sense (though the two dimensional map allowed for ball fields to be placed on slopes... but it's still early, and it was a good exercise just the same).

The Ronald Reagan Park (as I'm calling it at the moment) Colorforms set...
just in time for Christmas!

During the presentation I asked, "Best case scenario, how soon until this gets to the city council?" 

Mr. Ferber tried to answer it, but wasn't really getting there when Dan York gave a comprehensive answer covering the the entire process (beginning at the 16:45 mark of the video). 

There is a "pop up" workshop in the works to be at the Breakfast With Santa event, which will be held at the Fire Station on Gruwell St, Saturday December 16th. It'll be a good time to come out and weigh in on the design of the new park.

After that, workshop #2 sometime in "February-ish", back at the city council chambers. Depending on how that workshop goes, there could be another one (it's up in the air at this time).

It's not too late to be part of this...

If you're saying, "Whoa, I love parks and I love Wildomar too... how is it that I haven't heard of this until now?"

Don't worry, as mentioned before, there are more such meetings planned. You can also email your thoughts and ideas to the city. Make sure it says "future park" in the subject line.

Dlee@cityofwildomar.org

What should the park be named?
One thing that hasn't been mentioned so far is the name for the new park. I've been calling it the Ronald Reagan Park, but we need a name that reflects our area, not a past president. I'd like to suggest that this be addressed now.

The best way I see going about it would be for people to make suggestions. Then, have them discussed at these visioning meetings, get the list down to a handful of names, and then place it on the 2018 ballot when three city council seats will also be voted on.

If that was a good enough method for stripping Rancho California off the maps in favor of Temecula... it seems like the best way to name this great future park of ours too.

•                •                •

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
- Thomas Alva Edison 

Wildomar Rap is no Thomas Edison, since it's only found about 211 ways that won't work thus far.