Lakes Community Park

by Tom Joynt

The issue of a local community park for the Lakes Area is about to take another
important step. In this issue of the LV Gazette, you will find a questionnaire offered up
by the Lakes Town Council. This questionnaire will help the Lakes Town Council gage
the communitys preference for having a local park and the Town Council chose the LV
Gazette as the best way to get a questionnaire out to the residents. The results of the
questionnaire will be sent to the County Supervisor. It is great to see our democratic
process in motion. One of the main functions of our Town Councils is to gage what is
right for the local residents and then pass that information on to our County Supervisor.
You may recall that in January of 2015, the whole thing got rolling with an enthusiastic
and well attended meeting at the Lakes Community Center where the park idea was first
discussed. After that meeting, a committee was formed to explore and refine the park
idea.
In June of 2015, the Lakes Community Park Committee sent a letter to Supervisor
Antonovich encouraging the creation of a park for the Lakes Area. Unfortunately, even
though there seemed to be sufficient funding for a park, the long term stability and
sustainability issues put a damper on any action by the County. However, the
Supervisors put together a county wide Park Needs Assessment study to determine
what needed to be done and what the costs would be. The Needs Assessment visited
all regions of the county and the Lakes hosted one of those scoping meetings on
January 21, 2016. Again, the Lakes residents responded with a well attended and
enthusiastic turnout.
All this assessing led up to a ballot vote on November 8, 2016. Although Donald and
Hillary were stealing the lime light, there was, in the mix, Measure A that asked LA
County voters to approve long term funding for local parks. Measure A needed a super
majority (67%) to pass. It passed by 74% and that tells me that there is an underlying
desire by a big majority of the taxpayers for parks to be part of our lives.
So now is the time for all good citizens to fill out that questionnaire and mail it in to our
Lakes Town Council. Please encourage your neighbors and friends to do the same. Let
your voice be known. It will be an important step for mankind and one giant step for our
children!