As the grades tickets go, it was one that expected the dog to eat before someone saw it.
In a recent classification of parks in the 100 most populated cities in the nation, Los Angeles delivered their place in number 88.
And fell to No. 90.
That is ridiculous in a city known for its Get-Outdoors climate throughout the year.
“It's not a good look,” a city repaire told me as he fixed a sprayer at the Griffith Park recreation center, where the Historical pool It is an empty tank, out of service since 2020.
Steve López
Steve López is a native of California who has been columnist of Los Angeles Times since 2001. He has won more than a dozen national journalism awards and is four times Pulitzer.
With the city about to organize World Cup football matches next year, and only three years of being host of the Summer 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the reparator thought:
“This would be a good time to boost parks,” he said.
Oh really. But that would mean jumping to a set of obstacles higher than you will find in an Olympic event.
The annual trust classification for the municipal parks of the public land is based on surface, investment, comfort, access and capital. Washington, DC, is No. 1, Irvine No. 2 and San Francisco No. 6. Other cities of California classified higher than those are San Diego (22), Sacramento (32), Fremont (38), San José (41), Oakland (44), Long Beach (56), Santa Clarita and Aleheide (Tied Tohey Aneam 81), and Chula Vista (84).
Jimmy Kim, general manager of the Department of Recreation and Parks of the City of Los Angeles, says that the staff has collapsed from 2,400 to approximately 1,200.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
A synopsis of The Trust, which launched its last findings in May, said Los Angeles “has one of the most challenged parks systems in the United States.” Five years ago, according to the report, the city was in the middle of the pack in the 49th, only to constantly sink into a Gopher hole. “The cause? A century of divestment.”
Jimmy Kim, general manager of the Department of Recreation and Parks of the city of Los Angeles, told me that since he first worked in the department as lifeguard in the 90s, the staff has fallen from 2,400 to approximately 1,200, which makes it difficult to maintain aging and deterioration facilities.
Several pools were not in shape to open this summer. Outside the Griffith Park pool, which is scheduled to replace in the coming years, the children of two families played in the Sandbox. They were 90 degrees, and the parents said they would be in the water if the pool was in operation. I entered the men's bathroom, near the tennis courts, just to find a yellow ribbon stretched through a toilet post.
“Many of our CEC centers are very old, so our pools and parks resources need some level of renewal or replacement,” said Kim, who admitted that it is a constant struggle to keep up. “We try to keep up the best we can, but it is almost like Whatamole.”
Money is a problem. A big problem.
The current tab for deferred maintenance?
How about $ 2 billion, more or less?
Kim said that an evaluation of needs is being carried out, to prioritize the projects and make the most efficient use of limited resources.
A person who plays basketball at the Eagle Rock Recreation Center.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Joe Halper, a former member of the Recreation Board and Parks, has been marking these challenges for me since I began to talk to him in January about losing his home in the January Palisades fire. Halper, 95, has been more interested in talking about his lifelong passion, public parks, than their own losses.
About 40% of the city population does not live half a mile at the foot of an open park or space, Halper said. That is a key metric in the qualifications of the trust. As Halper points out, “the lack of opportunities for physical exercise has been associated with the high level of diabetes and obesity,” especially in low -income communities.
But despite how disappointing that is the shortage of parks, there is an easily available and tragically underutilized resource that Halper has been promoting in his role as a member of the non -profit organization Parks Foundation.
Open the doors of closed schools, on weekends and school breaks, and make available those public assets for recreational activities.
This is not a new idea. I listened for the first time to the former New Jersey senator, Bill Bradley, to make that launch on the path of the presidential campaign 25 years ago, when he talked about how it makes no sense to close the doors to school libraries and gyms at 3 pm every day and all day on weekends. There are parks of the Community School in New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Oregon, as well as those of Los Angeles
Other cities have done it, and Los Angeles has begun their own initiative. Ten Lausd sites are already operating as parks of the community school on weekends, and this week, there was good news about the possibility of adding more to the mixture.
After years of negotiations to address the problems of responsibility and access, starting with an initiative under former mayor Eric Garcetti and a motion in 2023 by the City Councilor, Nithya Raman, the Board of the Los Angeles School District unanimously voted on Tuesday to approve an agreement of joint powers with the city.
Given the budget limitations, Raman told me: “Opening existing resources is a much lower cost option to provide parks.”
“Ten is great,” said the member of the Nick Melvoin school board at Tuesday's meeting, “but 1,000 is where we need to get there.” He said he would like to see two or three unlocked school doors “in the coming weeks and 20 or 30 for the end of the calendar year.”
“Any public space, in my opinion, which is closed to the public, is a tragedy,” he added.
It is not that the several hundred Lausd schools have the largest recreational facilities. The district has its own aging infrastructure problem, with a multimillion -dollar accumulation of deferred maintenance tab, according to Melvoin. There is also a Blacktop problem, as in too much, and there is not enough vegetation and shade (although they are working on some redesign projects).
(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times; Photographic Illustration of Jade Cuevas / Los Angeles Times)
Halper was concerned that the agreement of joint powers seems to prohibit the use of gyms and other interior spaces, which would limit some organized sports. But at the meeting of the School Board, where members of the Melvoin and Kelly Gozz Board raised the same problems, an employee of the district said the doors can be opened in a school for the school if there are enough resources available.
That is the biggest challenge in the future. The district intends to open and block the school doors on weekends, and the city will provide staff to cover the land. But there is no source of financing dedicated, and Kim said the city will seek help to the community.
“I think the key is philanthropic and couple support,” he said.
This is where the city needs to take advantage of its accommodation of the 2028 Olympic Games. The Games will cost billions and generate thousands of millions, and Los Angeles children should not be trapped with recreational facilities in poor condition, while elite athletes of the world compete in the first level facilities, dressed.
Kim said there has already been a substantial benefit, with 1 million children from Los Angeles who participated in the recreation athletics programs and city parks through a $ 160 million commitment of the International Olympic Committee and La28, the local organizing body of the Games.
That is a good start. Now let's see a commitment to financial aid to unlock school doors. From the IOC and LA28, the Dodgers, the Rams, the Chargers, the Lakers, the Clippers, The Kings, The Galaxy, Angel City FC, LAFC, The Sparks.
“Despite all the money spent, the public needs to see a lasting benefit of the Olympic Games, and I think it can be done,” said the County Supervisor, Janice Hahn, whose district includes San Pedro, where Peck Park's pool has been closed for several years.
The county has had its own challenges with the parks, and Hahn said that his efforts to extend the swimming season have been frustrating.
“It never made sense for me that the pools have closed in mid -August when some of our hottest days are at the end of summer and early fall,” he said.
As for the parks of the community school, I will keep the score, verify how many open and how long it takes. Raman said that with a certain fanfare, neighborhood participation and activities programming, he believes that the new community school parks can prosper.
Melvoin said that is an admirable strategy, but the first thing is the first.
“We open the doors,” he said.
