Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
School improvements cut Normal Heights park space
“We had a solemn promise: no encroachment on the green."
“This really shows a lack of respect to the many area residents that use the park."
When angry Normal Heights residents and the planning group began fighting the latest “park” shrinkage at the joint-use Adams Elementary School, they expected some resistance. But, instead, they learned that the joint-use agreement between the city and the San Diego Unified School District had expired.
The pre-construction green space (School Street in foreground, Hawley Boulevard on the right)
The school district had already taken the blacktop area (not part of the joint-use agreement) and put portable classrooms on it during the construction of a new school. While they were doing that, the district’s representatives and the planning group had struck an agreement that the construction wouldn’t encroach on the green space at the west end of the L-shaped park and playground, according to Scott Kessler, a planning-group member who also serves as executive director of the Adams Avenue Business Association.
“We had a solemn promise: no encroachment on the green after they took the basketball court and the blacktop,” Kessler said. “What we’re hearing is that bureaucrats from the school district talked to bureaucrats at [San Diego] parks and rec and made a deal without talking to the community.”
The business association has used the area as a stage during the Adams Avenue Street Fair held every September — except for 2017, when the modular classrooms filled the blacktop.
The fencing turned up about three weeks ago in the heavily used park. It is directly behind the Normal Heights Community Center on Hawley Boulevard.
The park is popular and well used by the community. (Disclosure: I know this because I go there.) During daylight hours after the school day ends, there’s often an all-ages group playing soccer on the green. Four seating areas with benches are often full of people visiting, eating, or hanging out with friends and phones. Locals bring dogs there early in the morning and later in the evening.
“This really shows a lack of respect to the many area residents that use the park and shows a lack of proper planning and process on their part,” Kessler said.
The fence cuts off the western quarter of the green area. Some dog owners thought the fencing was to create an off-leash area for their dogs to run, but the heavy construction equipment made ruts in the grass that made such activity risky.
The planning group has worked hard to put parks into the park-starved neighborhood and many of those exist under the joint-use scheme with city schools. The agreement basically says that before and after school, the designated areas are for all the public to access.
The arrangement has theoretically opened space for residents, but the planning group has repeatedly found that the areas are locked up at night. In the past, there has been confusion about whether it’s the parks staff or schools staff that is supposed to unlock the gates.
When planning-group members took their complaints to councilmember Chris Ward and the school district, they decided their first step was to review the agreement. That’s when they learned the agreement had recently expired.
“No one was paying attention and no one let us know,” Kessler said.
Samer Naji of the school district’s facilities management said that the district would like the community to be patient while the long-overdue upgrades to the school are underway. The city was notified that the project was beginning, he said.
“The district did succeed in limiting the staging area to just a small section of the joint-use area, as the majority of the joint-use area is available for community use,” Naji said in a written statement. “We will be working with the city to develop a new joint-use agreement for the site, as the current agreement is expired.”
The school district put out a request for bids with a range of $23 million to $26 million, according to the CaliforniaBids website. The project is described as the “whole site modernization” of the school that opened in 1980, according to the California Department of Education. About 300 students are enrolled. A charter school, San Diego Global Vision Academy, shares the campus.
Here's something you might be interested in.
School improvements cut Normal Heights park space
“We had a solemn promise: no encroachment on the green."
School improvements cut Normal Heights park space
“We had a solemn promise: no encroachment on the green."
“This really shows a lack of respect to the many area residents that use the park."
When angry Normal Heights residents and the planning group began fighting the latest “park” shrinkage at the joint-use Adams Elementary School, they expected some resistance. But, instead, they learned that the joint-use agreement between the city and the San Diego Unified School District had expired.
The pre-construction green space (School Street in foreground, Hawley Boulevard on the right)
The school district had already taken the blacktop area (not part of the joint-use agreement) and put portable classrooms on it during the construction of a new school. While they were doing that, the district’s representatives and the planning group had struck an agreement that the construction wouldn’t encroach on the green space at the west end of the L-shaped park and playground, according to Scott Kessler, a planning-group member who also serves as executive director of the Adams Avenue Business Association.
“We had a solemn promise: no encroachment on the green after they took the basketball court and the blacktop,” Kessler said. “What we’re hearing is that bureaucrats from the school district talked to bureaucrats at [San Diego] parks and rec and made a deal without talking to the community.”
The business association has used the area as a stage during the Adams Avenue Street Fair held every September — except for 2017, when the modular classrooms filled the blacktop.
The fencing turned up about three weeks ago in the heavily used park. It is directly behind the Normal Heights Community Center on Hawley Boulevard.
The park is popular and well used by the community. (Disclosure: I know this because I go there.) During daylight hours after the school day ends, there’s often an all-ages group playing soccer on the green. Four seating areas with benches are often full of people visiting, eating, or hanging out with friends and phones. Locals bring dogs there early in the morning and later in the evening.
“This really shows a lack of respect to the many area residents that use the park and shows a lack of proper planning and process on their part,” Kessler said.
The fence cuts off the western quarter of the green area. Some dog owners thought the fencing was to create an off-leash area for their dogs to run, but the heavy construction equipment made ruts in the grass that made such activity risky.
The planning group has worked hard to put parks into the park-starved neighborhood and many of those exist under the joint-use scheme with city schools. The agreement basically says that before and after school, the designated areas are for all the public to access.
The arrangement has theoretically opened space for residents, but the planning group has repeatedly found that the areas are locked up at night. In the past, there has been confusion about whether it’s the parks staff or schools staff that is supposed to unlock the gates.
When planning-group members took their complaints to councilmember Chris Ward and the school district, they decided their first step was to review the agreement. That’s when they learned the agreement had recently expired.
“No one was paying attention and no one let us know,” Kessler said.
Samer Naji of the school district’s facilities management said that the district would like the community to be patient while the long-overdue upgrades to the school are underway. The city was notified that the project was beginning, he said.
“The district did succeed in limiting the staging area to just a small section of the joint-use area, as the majority of the joint-use area is available for community use,” Naji said in a written statement. “We will be working with the city to develop a new joint-use agreement for the site, as the current agreement is expired.”
The school district put out a request for bids with a range of $23 million to $26 million, according to the CaliforniaBids website. The project is described as the “whole site modernization” of the school that opened in 1980, according to the California Department of Education. About 300 students are enrolled. A charter school, San Diego Global Vision Academy, shares the campus.
Comments