Nothing as sweet as remodel of Candy Cane Park

Lodi Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Saturday morning at Candy Cane Park.

The ribbon-cutting celebrates the new playground equipment that has been installed at the park.

“It’s been three years since there was a jungle gym there,” Lodi resident Myrna Wetzel said. “The kids will be so excited to have a park to play at.”

The 0.2-acre park on Holly Drive was built in the late 1950s by Soroptimist International of Lodi, who also donated a new play structure for the park in 1991. The playground received minor updates again in 1997, in order to meet the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

However, the play structure was removed in 2017 after it began deteriorating.

In 2016, the parks department set aside $55,000 for playground upgrades for Candy Cane Park, in the hopes that Measure R, a sales tax measure, would be passed by voters. It was not, and with the failure of Measure R, the parks department got approval from council to redirect that funding to needed roof repairs at Salas Park instead.

After losing the funding and the park structure, Wetzel began picketing in front of the park every day. She marched with a sign daily for 56

weeks, accompanied by her dog Blessing.

People would stop and tell her stories about the park and how integral it was to their childhood, she said.

“Every day, someone would stop me and tell me about how their parents brought them to the park and how much it meant to them,” Wetzel said.

Once Measure L passed — a half-cent sales tax increase that goes into Lodi’s general fund — Candy Cane Park was at the top of the list of parks slated to receive funding for restoration projects.

Candy Cane Park received a new ADA-compliant playground structure, benches, picnic tables, swings, a new drinking fountain, concrete sidewalks and a new park sign.

“There was supposed to be a fence around the park, but they didn’t put one in, which I am not too happy about,” Wetzel said. “If kids are playing ball and the ball rolls out in the street and they go running for it, God forbid something should happen.”

Wetzel is excited to attend the ribbon-cutting ceremony and is watch as children play at the new playground, she said.