1st meeting in 10 years

Yuma County parks commission marks new chapter Wednesday

Yuma County’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission held its first meeting in 10 years Wednesday, starting a new chapter in county efforts to respond to residents of unincorporated areas who want more public open space close to home.

The 10-member commission will advise the Board of Supervisors on issues relating to existing or new parks, along with partnerships, grants or other ways of funding operations and maintenance for these parks.

County Public Works Director Josh Scott, who said he is also the county’s de facto parks and rec director, said the board made no guarantees about funding when it approved a new set of powers and duties for the commission in November.

The resolution outlining the board’s reasoning behind the changes says, in part: “Whereas, the Board is desirous of providing lands for parks and recreational use while minimizing the expenditure of County funds for the acquisition, improvement, operation and maintenance of said lands.”

The reformation of the commission was driven by Foothills residents wanting to establish a park for that area, which has none aside from a grassy retention basin in Mesa Del Sol that is maintained by a local Optimist Club for the county.

Working with District 3 County Supervisor Darren Simmons, who represents the area, a county-owned piece of property next to the Foothills Library was identified as a possible site, but a local service club interested in helping to develop it decided it could not afford the kind of insurance that would be needed.

The land used to belong to the Arizona Department of Transportation and has a deed restriction that its use must be transportationrelated, so County Administrator Susan Thorpe said officials are trying to position it for use by cyclists and pedestrians, among others.

Nancy Ngai, county community planning supervi-

sor, went over the history of county involvement with parks, saying it once had a large parks and recreation department until county leaders ended it in the early 1980s, deciding there wasn’t enough money to maintain it.

A few county parks left over from that era are overseen by local nonprofits or agencies, plus a couple of newer, grant-assisted ones: Kiwanis Park in Tacna and Esperanza Park just outside Somerton, next to Orange Grove Elementary School.

The re-formed commission includes two men who were members when it stopped meeting in February 2009, because nothing it had recommended within a parks master plan had been funded.

One of them, Louie Gradias of Gadsden, was briefly chosen as the commission’s chair before he said he really didn’t want the job.

“We want to make sure there’s a positive end, that when we try to get things started, that there’s something to back it up. I don’t want it to be like the last committee, where we came to a lot of meetings, and nothing ever happened,” he said.

He and Tim Gilliland are joined by eight new members who bring various backgrounds and expertises to the table.

They include Linda Elliot, the leader of a local committee in the Foothills that has met for two years to try to create a park in that area, and Sergio Davalos, parks and recreation director for the city of Somerton.

Davalos became the board’s vice chair after Judith Gill, a retired business manager for the University of Arizona’s research stations, was chosen as the new chair.

Member Judy Phillips is also on the city of Yuma’s Parks, Arts and Recreation Commission, while Rosalie Lines is past president of the Yuma Area Nonprofit Institute. Barbara Cavanaugh is a Foothills resident who was on a county Comprehensive Plan committee representing that area.

“It was like a dream session for what we wanted, we had bike paths and all that. And nothing came of it,” she said. “But the need is still there. The need is desperately there.”

Two commission members were not present, Althea Evans and Louie Galaviz.

The regular commission meetings will be held the second Wednesday of every month at 5:30 p.m., the members decided. They will be held at the county Public Works Department at 4343 S. Avenue 5 1/2 E in Yuma.

Commissioners said they wanted agenda items at their next meeting on the 2005 county Master Parks Plan, possible grant sources, involvement of community members and groups and what the county currently spends on its parks.

Thorpe said that probably amounts to about $500.

Elliot said her Foothills park group is close to finalizing its plan for that area and could be ready to present it at the March meeting.