• Community Spirit: Indy Purkiss

Let me introduce you to a remarkable young person named Indiana, Indy for short. 

She's a 10 year old Wildomar resident, student at Ronald Reagan Elementary and first came across my radar when she delivered a public comment to the city council in February 2019. 

Indiana Purkiss as seen from the dias.

Her cause deals with a park in her neighborhood that has been closed longer than she's been alive.

This was taken during the height of our rains this year. 

She'd like to see it reopened. Below are the highlights of her public comment.

My brother and I want to redo it (Canyon View Park) but we need to get your permission first. Our plan is to organize some neighborhood cleanup weekends where we can: 

1) sweep and repaint the basketball court; 

2) cut and pull out all the weeds in the grass and make it look nice; 

3) clean up the whole hill and make it look nice; 

4) pay for and put together a playground and a basketball hoop; 

5) invite friends and family to come and play at the park. 

Pretty cool, huh? I just need your permission for a cool park in our neighborhood.

April, Indy, Dallas and Matt Purkiss

We don't have any parks in our neighborhood, and it would be really cool to have one. A lot of kids live here and we would love a place to run around and play. It would be really great if you could consider letting us build up this abandoned park into a useable space for us kids to play. I look forward to hearing from you.

-Indy Purkiss, February 13, 2019 

Take a look at the two and a half minute video below, it takes a lot of courage to speak in public, especially when it's in front of elected officials.

Wanting to know more of the history of the shuddered park, I was directed to John Lloyd, a longtime champion of Wildomar parks. 

He gave me a brief overview as he remembers it. Note, he refers to it as "The Pit Park".

Ah The Pit!

The County accepted a Flood Control Basin as a park in the late 80’s early 90’s. Developers for County communities were allowed to free wheel and cut corners frequently.

If you take Canyon Ranch Road off of Bundy to the north and follow it all the way up to Gafford Road, then turn left and go a block to Great Falls Road you are at the corner of The Pit Park.

You can see the walking trail that goes around the lower park, but is fenced off.

There used to be a walking trail around the top of the pit and a basketball ½ court with picnic tables down in the bottom.

The old Parks system used to maintain the park and people used it all the time. I tried unsuccessfully to get the walking path at the top re-opened but I was shut down each time.

The walking trail.

When Supervisor Buster couldn’t get his additional park tax in the late 90’s he threatened and eventually closed the parks. Huge mistake. Since the parks were closed all forms of park funding were revoked, tightening the budget would have fixed the issue but he was determined to make a point, we all paid that price.

Flood control took over the Pit since there were no park funds to keep it safe and the area needed to have a good working flood control basin. At the same time all the other parks were fenced and closed.

A look at the basketball court from beyond the double fencing.

Later, Flood control refused to return the park to the community. They felt it was not a safe location for a park and at the time they wanted the County to take over all responsibility for it if it was re-opened as a park. The County backed off and in no time at all the Pit became a graffiti nightmare.

Later when we became a City I asked to see about getting it re-opened but City Council wouldn’t support the idea because the cost to maintain it wasn’t included in the park tax and being a flood control basin the maintenance can be pretty heavy.

I still think it should be re-opened if possible. The community has nothing in that area and folks used to really appreciate that little park.

So that’s the history of The Pit Park.

Where there's a will, there's a way. I've heard reports of homeless activity in the park and in one of the other photos above you can see bike jumps. The fence is only keeping regular folks from using it.

I don't know what can be done about this long closed park, but I think it's worth asking. If this is something that interests you, consider emailing the city with your thoughts on it. 

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Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you.
– Walt Whitman

Wildomar Rap would have to wear a hat and sunglasses to follow this advice... I hate squinting.

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