The community services district in Rossmoor (RCSD), which runs the two parks in the unincorporated area, is considering a DRASTIC REDUCTION of 30% to 50% in how much the Los Alamitos Girls Softball League can use Rossmoor Park.
The league has used the park since the 1960s and has provided a wholesome activity for local girls for decades. In 2011, the league signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the RCSD and RPN, Rossmoor Park Neighbors, (representatives of 30 homeowners) that gave access to the park’s three fields to continue the mission as it has for decades.
The league’s board has said it does not want to lose the MOU. The homeowners say they want to keep the MOU in place.
But RCSD wants to tear up that agreement and is considering a 30% to 50% reduction in field use. At a meeting Thursday (6/20) RCSD officials complained bitterly about the league, such as why they call themselves the Los Alamitos Girls Softball League and not Rossmoor Girls Softball League. They said trash overflows the park’s bins on game days.
They complained that the girls practice pitching behind home plate was never permitted, even though the league has done this for over 30 years, and it has never been an issue.
Really? This is what RCSD has come down to, a mean-spirited operation that has been attacking homeowners over the last few years and is now grumbling about the girls.
Two board members, Mike Maynard and Tony DeMarco, said at the meeting that they weren’t going to kick the league out of the park. That’s disingenuous. They are presenting a false narrative about trying to redress parking problems around the park by reducing the league’s use of it.
Over the last two years, the RCSD board has stated unequivocally that parking and congestion are not issues at Rossmoor Park, despite the pleas of nearby homeowners that the addition of four pickleball courts would make parking difficult. Now all of a sudden they are concerned with “softening the impact on surrounding park neighbors.”
It is true that homeowners around the park are complaining about parking and traffic, but LAGLS’s use of the park is limited to certain hours, days and months. By contrast, pickleball is every day of the year from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. When the four courts are used for doubles, it adds up to 16 additional vehicles to the neighborhood streets, since the park has no parking lot. By the way, Rush Park has its own parking lot, which is empty most of the time.
There is a public concept called “first in time, first in right.” Well, the girls were at the park for a half century before RCSD decided to install pickleball. The girls have a first right. Let’s not make the girls pay for the errors of RCSD in trying to jam ever more activity into the park. Over the years, RCSD has added pickleball, a summer youth camp and enhanced basketball, each nice activities but each contribute to traffic and parking congestion around the park.
The MOU in 2011 called for offloading some games to Rush Park. A new softball diamond was built for that purpose, but for the last decade has been used very little, if at all. The league last year offered to pay the cost of improving the diamond and playing more games there, if only RCSD would extend the fence line. RCSD General Manager Joe Mendoza has rejected doing it.
RCSD apparently feels it has a financial problem and wants to raise the softball league’s fees. Some of that makes sense, but RCSD would have plenty of money if Directors DeMarco, Barke & Maynard hadn’t voted to recklessly spend $65,000 (previously unbudgeted) to resurface all four tennis courts and the basketball court – TWO YEARS EARLY – instead of simply painting lines for the one court being converted to pickleball.
The original MOU was a tri-party agreement that has served this community well for 13 years. Now Maynard and DeMarco want to cut out any role the neighborhood has in the girls’ league. No doubt that is because we support the league, as RCSD wants to eviscerate it. And as was the case with pickleball, Directors Maynard, DeMarco & Barke, along with GM Mendoza, have repeatedly shown their disdain for any input from park neighbors if it interferes with their self-serving autocratic agenda.
RCSD says only a few homeowners are raising a fuss. In fact, more than 50 homeowners around the park neighborhood have signed a petition (name, address and signature, not a phony online survey) asking the county to help with relief from pickleball. There needs to be acoustic mitigation and a parking plan. It will not cost a fortune.
It’s time for RCSD to stop fighting the community and start trying to listen to its constituents.
2011 RPN Representatives
Ralph Vartabedian
Michele Fieldson
Rossmoor