|
By Mike Gervais
Register Staff
8-30-2008 Culminating years of planning and extensive work, a field expansion and rehabilitation of the dilapidated tennis courts at Russell Spainhower Park in Lone Pine appear to be imminent.
The completion of those two projects, expected sometime before March 2009, means the series of extensive improvements at the park will finally be finished, giving residents a new multi-use field, decorative lighting, pathways, bridges, bathrooms, play equipment and, of course, refurbished tennis courts.
In December of 2007, the Inyo County Board of Supervisors considered three project scenarios to complete the Lone Pine Park Improvement Project. All three scenarios required funding from the county’s Prop 40 funds and were ultimately rejected, as the board agreed, in a 4-1 vote, to refrain from spending the Prop 40 money until the rehabilitation costs for the Tecopa Sewer Pond were known.
The board did approve the use of existing park funds to complete the Lone Pine Park decorative lighting and tennis court rehabilitation and decided to address the remainder of the Lone Pine Park projects after staff had looked more extensively at the Tecopa Sewer Pond. That meant a hydroseeding project for the former baseball diamond at Russell Spainhower Park in Lone Pine would have to wait.
Inyo County Parks and Recreation and Public Works staff revisited the park lighting costs and ultimately transferred management of that project from Public Works to Parks and Recreation staff.
With help from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which helped remove old materials from the park, the lighting project “is now 99 percent complete,” said Deputy County Administrator Chuck Hamilton. The cost of the lighting project, he added, was “significantly under the engineered project estimate.”
With work rolling along at a lower cost in the park, Hamilton and county staff decided to revisit the hydroseed/expansion project as well. Crews “determined that the project could be completed with assistance from Parks and Recreation personnel,” said Hamilton.
The low bid on the expansion project came in at $32,375.
The current project budget includes $58,445 in the Lone Pine Park Improvement Fund and a balance of $65,680 in the Park Trust Fund. However, those balances do not reflect any engineering expenses for the park projects.
In addition to the $124,083 total in the Park Improvement Fund and the Park Trust Fund, Inyo County has $67,900 in the Lone Pine Park Robert-Z’Berg-Harris Grant which the state is withholding until all the improvements in the park are complete.
That grant will expire June 30, 2009.
“All projects and accounting must be complete in time to submit documentation to the state to allow the state time to review and approve the projects and make payment to the county before that deadline,” said Hamilton. “In other words, we must complete the Lone Pine Park projects before March 30, 2009. We will not receive the $67,900 from RZH until all projects are complete,” he said.
With $32,900 going towards the park expansion and hydroseeding project, Hamilton said there will be $91,183 remaining for rehabilitation work at the tennis courts.
Once the work at the tennis courts is complete, the state will reimburse the county with the Robert-Z’Berg-Harris Grant in the amount of $67,900.
The supervisors expressed fears that, with summer winding down and freezing temperatures in the Owens Valley expected in the next couple months, the work on the tennis courts will be stalled until next spring, which would make for a tight deadline for completion of the park projects.
“The engineering is almost done, and soon it will go out to bid,” Hamilton said about the tennis courts. “It is imperative that we get this out to bid and get this scheduled” before the weather gets too cold.
Hamilton said the tennis courts improvements could be completed before the March 30 deadline for completion of the projects.
With that assurance, the board unanimously agreed to award the hydroseeding bid to Pacific Restoration Group, Inc. of Corona for $32,000 and urged the Parks and Recreation Department to finish the engineering work at the tennis courts and finish that aspect of the project as soon as possible, as the board, and the residents of Lone Pine, are eager to have the park project completed.
“The park right now looks beautiful,” said Second District Supervisor Susan Cash, “and the improvements that are there look great.”
“The people of Lone Pine really appreciate their park and it is heavily, heavily used all year – for the film festival and other events,” said Fifth District Supervisor and Lone Pine resident Richard Cervantes.
Once the improvements are complete in Russell Spainhower Park, Hamilton said the Parks and Recreation Department will focus its attention on long-awaited enhancements at Millpond County Park in Bishop.
Hamilton said that $37,000 from the Robert-Z’Berg-Harris Grant will be dedicated to purchasing new playground equipment at Millpond in Bishop.
That will leave $30,900 remaining in the park projects fund for miscellaneous improvements.
“I think we should wait on the Millpond play equipment until we know the engineering costs” from the Lone Pine project, Cash recommended, so that the county would not over-spend on its park projects. |
