The large gym at the Palisades Rec Center burned and is not useable.
Photo: RICH SCHMITT/CTN
L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger wrote in her March 7 newsletter that “Each one of the County parks in Altadena was impacted by the Eaton Fire, and these vital spaces for community gathering and recreation have been sorely missed. That’s why our County Department of Parks and Recreation has committed to reopening Loma Alta Park in May! Thanks to a $2.4 million donation from the FireAid L.A. concert in partnership with the Annenberg Foundation, we’ll be able to build a brand-new playground for youth. Typically, a new playground of this caliber takes 18 months, but we’re fast tracking it so it opens in just two months.
Additionally, funding from the Dodgers Foundation will provide two amazing Dodgers Dreamfields for baseball, and support from the Clippers will refurbish the gym and sponsor a Junior Clippers program. The park will also house a satellite senior center, satellite library, and after-school, youth, and teen programs. Excitingly, the park will also play host to the community’s favorite outdoor summer concerts put on by the Altadena Rotary! Additionally, my office allocated funding to create gathering spaces with Adirondack chairs and trees that will make way for respite and rejuvenation.
This is such an exciting, sorely-needed, and well-deserved investment in our Altadena community. If you’d like to get involved, Parks is inviting volunteers to plant trees, landscape, and paint murals every Saturday in April.
By contrast, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass has turned Palisades’ sole park located in the center of the town into a L.A. Department of Water and Power center. Small cubicles for DWP workers have been built in the newly carpeted – and only usable gym in the Palisades. Trees that lined the bocce courts were cut down and lower tennis courts are now DWP storage sites. The large gym suffered major fire damage and is unusable. The outdoors basketball courts now house DWP modular housing.
The 1950s brick building Rec Center that housed the small gym, lacked heat, Wi-Fi or ADA-accessible bathrooms. The adjacent ADA-inaccessible playground that was completed in the 1980, needs to be replaced.
The only usable gym in the Pacific Palisades has been turned into a DWP work center.
Photo: RICH SCHMITT/CTN
PAB members asked for help in restoring the park at a February 18 Zoom meeting.
L.A. City Rec and Parks General Manager Jimmy Kim said he was waiting for a report from the Bureau of Engineering before he meets with the Haggerty group, a disaster recovery contractor based in Illinois, hired by Bass. “To see what the reimbursement dollars might be,” Kim said.
At that meeting Steve Soboroff, Bass’s emissary, said that city money can be restrictive and that replacements might be more efficient with donations.
PAB Member Bob Benton asked, “There are donations coming in from all over the city, where are they going?”
It appears that Barger was able to access them. And the City? The mayor was asked for a comment as was Councilmember Traci Park. If either respond the story will be updated.
Where is the FireAid concert money for the Palisades?
If it’s lost, then Steve Soboroff can make the ” donation“
to build our park back b/c he endorsed Karen Bass
Btw – how coincidental it is that both Mayors of Los Angeles and Lahaina
would both be “out of town” during the two worst fires, on the most expensive land
in two democratic states.
Boy, that’s like winning the lottery, what are the odds of that.
I’m just grateful to see some of the money from Fireaid L.A. going to a worthy cause.
None of us understand where all the fundraising money went; if not being spent towards rebuilding community infrastructure in the Palisades as well as Altadena then what?
We are clearly once again getting the short end of the stick, likely in the name of equity. The city does not care if our kids have parks, playground or a gym.
Traci Park needs to address this contemptuous attitude head-on and demand the Palisades’ rebuild receives its fair share of assistance. While the private sector is trying to return to some semblance of normalcy, our elected bureaucrats are once again putting a finger in our eye.