Temescal Renovations Approved (and Needed)

A guide to the city’s park in lower Temescal Canyon might read: Caution! Beware of dry-rotting pagodas, ramshackle tables, wobbly benches, misfiring water fountains, mud puddles and West Nile Virus! The City Council approved $250,000 to renovate the park in Temescal last June, using Proposition K funds. Progress there awaits a Bureau of Engineering pre-design expected within the month and approval from a local oversight committee. But change seems like a distant reality for park visitors, who have complained about lackluster facilities and deficient upkeep for years. ‘It’s a disaster,’ said Palisadian Ted Mackie who frequently walks his dog through the park. ‘It’s miserably maintained. It doesn’t look like the lawn is fertilized or the bushes trimmed.’ Barbara Kohn, a Palisadian, remembers visiting the park four years ago with her four-year-old grandson. ‘It was so filthy, I couldn’t sit on the benches,’ said Kohn, who was recently appointed by Councilman Bill Rosendahl to help direct funding for city parks within the district. ‘Plus, there were splinters everywhere. I was appalled, and I haven’t been back ever since,’ There are seven pagoda-style picnic areas in the park along Temescal Canyon Road, but few of the areas seem habitable’or even safe’for picnickers. Wooden beams weakened by dry-rot perch precariously above picnic tables’some punctuated by exposed concrete rebar. In fact, yellow tape emblazoned with ‘Caution!’ closed off access to one of the pagodas Wednesday morning. At two upper pagodas, there are no benches or picnic tables. Mini-pools of stagnant water and mud have replaced park benches there, simultaneously repelling humans but attracting mosquitoes. One pagoda has a warning sign from the County Vector Control, urging caution of West Nile Virus. The city’s Department of Recreation and Parks is charged with maintaining the park. In a conversation with the Palisadian-Post Tuesday, Debby Rolland, superintendent of the department’s operations in West L.A., defended the maintenance of park but acknowledged the need for new infrastructure. She said staff crews clean the park daily, but recent community demands to uproot homeless from the area have diverted crews from their normal operations. She also said that staff frequently tries to clean out water to prevent stagnant pools from forming but that a large amount of water from local backyards often clogs drains. ‘The condition of the pagodas is very poor, and the picnic tables are falling apart,’ Rolland said. ‘But they are going to be replaced with Prop. K funding.’ Lower Temescal was one of few parks that was allocated Prop. K money last year, but visitors may not benefit from the new funding until July 2008, according to Neil Drucker, who oversees Prop. K funding for the Bureau of Engineering. The bureau has 142 projects to review for the Recreation and Parks, and construction at lower Temescal will be contingent on the progress of those other projects. He said that a preliminary design of the project is expected to be completed within the month. After that, a group of community members selected by Councilman Rosendahl, called a Local Volunteer Neighborhood Oversight Committee or LVNOC, will draft a final plan and hold three public hearings. ‘Construction has to be awarded by July 2007, but there is no legally mandated completion date,’ Drucker said. ‘The goal would be to have it completed by July 2008.’ ———– Reporting by Staff Writer Max Taves. E-mail: reporter@palipost.com; Phone: (310) 985-1607 ext. 28.