Volunteers begin beautification of Hollywood Trailer Park
Marysville Fire Chief
Ron Karlen was out at the Hollywood Trailer Park area after last year’s fire and as clean up efforts were ongoing and had an epiphany about what could be done to make the location an asset to the city.
He remembered seeing people stopping while driving to take photos of sunflowers in bloom and thought the same phenomenon could become a reality in Marysville. He worked with Councilman Dominique Belza to secure seeds through Botanica Landscapes and on Thursday wildflower seed was planted in the area at the end of 2nd Street near the Yuba River.
The Bridge Church’s City Impact team helped prep the soil by removing trash and debris and equipment from Botanica was used to smooth out the soil for planting.
“This is just the beginning of the story in my mind and it’s going to be beautiful,” Karlen said.
Since June 2020, Karlen has worked to get areas like the Hollywood Trailer Park cleaned up because of overgrown vegetation, encampments and possible fires that could result. Several stakeholder entities came together to come up with a way to address the issues but the effort lost traction. Last
October, the Hollywood Trailer Park Fire burned through the area and became the catalyst for the city to push forward with clean up. Karlen was named project manager for the cleanup efforts throughout the city and Hollywood was the first site on the agenda. The city approved $140,000 for cleanup efforts throughout the city.
After eliminating most of the vegetation in the Hollywood area to reduce fire risk, Karlen said the area was a more desirable location for beautification.
“It just kept growing,” Karlen said. “The more I did the more I wanted to do, and it kept me fueled.”
He said without volunteer groups like the Bridge Church and Saylove, which helped with cleanup, it would have taken the fire department months and months to do the same job.
“We have a lot of momentum going right now,” Karlen said. “I have the support, finally, I’ve been looking for with councilmembers and city management, which I didn’t have before and so I want to keep going as hard as we can for as long as we can before that momentum runs out.”
The fire department, police and public works have been cleaning up other areas in the city including the Thorntree and Sand Plant locations. Karlen said the goal is to get as much cleaned up before fire season.
“Having a crew and team out here – it’s just a very spirited effect of knowing, wow, people are also feeling that same energy and momentum that I feel,” Karlen said. “If you’re by yourself, it’s lonely.”
Part of Thursday’s crew was 16 members of the Bridge Church
City Impact team led by pastor Jim Carpenter.
“We’re looking forward to playing our part to revitalize Marysville,” Carpenter said.
He said the church looks for opportunities to work with city leadership to make a positive impact in the community.
“We want to motivate the rest of the community to say ‘hey, we can do something together,’” Carpenter said. “We can get so much more done together.”
Botanica Landscapes founder Bill Lucich drove a skid-steer loader around a plot of ground that was being prepared for the seeds to be planted. Lucich said Botanica has been in Yuba-sutter for 42 years and tries to participate in community projects. Belza presented the project to Lucich who provided the seeds and said the goal is to turn the former trailer park into a garden by planting a wildflower seed mix.
“It should be quite the spring spectacular,” Lucich said.
The process of preparing the ground included leveling it out, grading and running a screen over the soil. Seeds were planted on Thursday using spreaders and then the seeds were rolled into the ground.
“The soil out here is actually pretty good,” Lucich said. “It’s all river soil.”
He estimated that the flowers should start blooming in about 45-60 days.
“What you see now still looks pretty disastrous but what it was like before was horrendous,” Lucich said. “By getting it all cleaned up it’s going to be a big improvement for the city and for the entire community.”