Short Parks & Rec. Commission Meeting
The Costa Mesa Parks and Recreation Commission, most of them, met Thursday night for what I thought might be a fairly short meeting that actually turned out even shorter! Commissioners Byron de Arakal and Robert Graham were absent from this meeting.
TWO ITEMS PULLED FROM THE AGENDA
Two tree removal items were yanked from the agenda and moved forward to the meeting of October 22, 2015, which left us only one remaining tree removal item and the always-interesting discussion on lighted fields. As it was, the meeting ended about 7:40, and could have been even shorter except for the kind of circular waltz that was done with the tree removal request.
MARINE CANDY DRIVE
There was only one speaker during Public Comments. The omnipresent Beth Refakes, a stalwart on the Military Affairs Team, stepped up and reminded us of the Halloween Candy Drive for the children of 1/5 Marines from Camp Pendleton. There's a box in the City Hall lobby in which individually-wrapped candy may be placed. The Military Affairs Team will transport the collection to Camp Pendleton near the end of October, in time for their annual celebration. Kudos to Beth and the other members of the team.
TEMPORARY FIELD LIGHT ROTATION PLAN

ERRANT BALLS
DENTED GARAGE DOOR
Resident Kathleen Murphy, who lives across the street from Back Bay High School on Monte Vista, worried about the other sports being played there - Lacrosse, specifically, because of the dents in her garage door from misfired balls and the lights from the school late at night.
GOAL PROXIMITY
Derrick Spaulding, also a Bayview Terrace resident, echoed Stiffler's concerns and was worried about the proximity of the goals to his property line because he felt it would result in too many balls flying over his fence.
WHAT ABOUT THE NUMBERS?
Eastside resident Katie Arthur, who has been here before because her property backs up to Harper School, expressed concern because she and others have not been able to get actual numbers on how many children are involved in the leagues using these fields from AYSO 97. She also observed that an expert that testified a year ago indicated the lights chosen were wrong for the application. She also wondered how many kids involved are from Newport Beach, and what Newport is doing to help with the situation.
AN ANONYMOUS ECHO
Another resident who preferred not to identify herself echoed Arthur's concerns about the numbers, citing Anna Vrska's difficulty getting statistics during her tour on the Fairview Park Citizens Advisory Committee. Regarding the lights, she suggested a technical consultant.
ECKLES RESPONSE
BEGIN 10/1
After more discussion Eckles moved to approve the rotation plan as outlined in the staff report, but that instead of beginning on October 15th the start date should be moved ahead to October 1st. The motion passed on a 3-0 vote.
TREE REMOVAL AT 1653 LABRADOR DRIVE
Next up was the tree removal request by Robert Harrington at 1653 Labrador Drive. Mr. Harrington has lived at that address for 47 years and has seen two City trees installed. The first was a Brazilian Pepper, which destroyed the walkway, so the city removed it and replaced it with the tree in question - a 20 year-old Liquid Amber, which is doing the same thing.
OOPS... NEW INFORMATION!

TOOK TOO LONG, BUT THEY GOT THERE

RECREATION MANAGERS SUMMER REPORT
The last thing on the agenda, for which we had no staff report, is Karlen's Summer Report. So, I'll just let you try to get the gist of it from these images I took as he spoke about the very successful summer programs, which served the youth, adults and senior citizens for the past three months. He did mention that the Concerts In The Park series had an average attendance of 1,500 people and raised over $10,000.
At the end Eckles asked Karlen about fees, particularly at the Senior Center. He responded that they seemed to be in line with other senior centers nearby, but that they will be investigating ways to reduce them using grant funding.
NEXT MONTH MORE FUN
Chairman Kim Pedersen adjourned the meeting to October 22, 2015.
Labels: Brett Eckles, Don Harper, Kim Pederson, Lighted Fields, Travis Karlen