Parks and Recreation Commission Preview - August 15

The Parks and Recreation Commission (PRC) will meet Thursday night at 7 pm to consider off-leash dog possibilities as well as “healthy cities” initiative.

OFF LEASH

We’ve covered the dog park issues extensively. Last time we reviewed 5 parks (Borrego, Pittsford, Regency, Vintage, Darrin) to see which ones met the 8 criteria we selected (size, usage, parking, near dog owners, away from homes, shade, convenient, fit large and small). Borrego nudged out Pittsford and Darrin, with Regency and Vintage far behind. If we were simply going to put in one dog zone to serve the entire City, Pittsford seems the best choice. If we wanted to better serve the entire city, with two parks, one “up there” and the other “down here”, then a zone in Borrego and a zone in Darrin would be the choice.

Ah. If life were only that simple! Some members of the PRC have high hopes for the city – a multipurpose Recreation center located in a renovated Normandale Park. Is there money for such an enterprise? With the City spending some $50 million this next year, some people are worried about our ability to fund future projects, so the grand scheme might not be feasible, even if it is a damn good idea.

If a fully-fledged dog park were to be built in the Normandale area, having a dog zone in either Pittsford or Borrego would seem redundant, because all three of these areas are “up there” (i.e., above Trabuco). Therefore, if the PRC believes that Normandale is a good idea, and a feasible one, then it makes sense to go ahead with the Darrin dog zone for the time being while we wait the 5 or 10 years it will take for Normandale to become a reality. Along the way, if Normandale falls by the wayside, we can always build a zone in Borrego.

Bottom line – Darrin seems to be the best choice for our first dog zone. Let’s start there and see how it goes.

HEALTHY CITIES

The idea of “healthy cities” has been around for a long time. It’s a distant relative of the “social planning” of the early 20th Century, and has seen some success around the world. Here in Lake Forest, without a formal structure, we nonetheless have various “healthy city” programs which include –

·  AARP Driver Safety Courses

·  Free Vouchers for Seniors at Farmers Market

·  Annual Senior Resource Fair and Vaccination Clinic

·  Free Mammogram Screening (in collaboration with YMCA)

·  Yearly Flu Shots (in collaboration with OC Health Dept.)

The two questions before the PRC are

1. Shall we set up an advisory committee to oversee all these diverse activities

2. Shall we cough up $250 to subscribe to “California Healthy Cities and Communities Network” which will give us access to educational programs, technical assistance, grants and resource brokering, etc.

Option 1 seems like a no-brainer, and I’d like to recommend someone from the Senior Advisory Group serving as a liaison to this new group, since senior health is probably one of our most critical areas given that we are an aging city. Option 2 may be premature, since the staff has yet to explorer all the other “healthy cities” programs available. OTOH, $250 is hardly going to break the bank, and access to grant resources will surely more than cover the $250 cost of joining.

Sounds like a good idea to me and the PRC continues to prove just how valuable they are to our City.

BTW – would it be out of bounds for the PRC, since they have embraced the idea of a “healthy city”, to appear before the City Council and tell them to stop approving stores selling alcohol? We are getting to be the mecca for drunk drivers, and with all the health problems associated with using alcohol, not including the chances of being killed by a drunk driver, surely we’d be a healthier city without alcohol being available every 100 feet. The Alcohol Beverage Commission already reports that our neighborhoods are 200% and more than 300% over-saturated with stores selling alcohol. The City Council needs to stop approving more alcohol selling stores in the city. That’s the biggest step anyone can take toward making Lake Forest a “healthy city.”