New council will take up future of Redding's South City Park

The future of South City Park could be decided Tuesday night by a new Redding City Council.

Tuesday’s meeting is expected to draw a lot of interest and public opinion about what do with the city’s oldest park.

At the last council meeting on Nov. 15, an application to apply for a $3.5 million grant to start the first phase of improvements at the park failed to move forward after councilors deadlocked 2-2.

Mayor Kristen Schreder and Councilwoman Julie Winter voted for the grant. Vice Mayor Michael Dacquisto and Mayor Pro Tempore Mark Mezzano voted not to apply for the grant. Councilwoman Erin Resner was not at the meeting.

It was decided to table the matter to Tuesday when a new council will be seated.

Tenessa Audette and Jack Munns will join Dacquisto, who was reelected, Mezzano and Winter on dais.

Schreder did not run for reelection and Resner lost her bid to become a Shasta County supervisor.

Already, many at past council meetings and social media have weighed in on the future of South City Park. Some support the city's vision to turn it into a mixed-use center, while others believe it's a prime spot to expand the city's baseball field options.

Both Dacquisto and Mezzano did not know how they will vote Tuesday, but they did recount why they voted against the grant application in November.

Both are skeptical about spending $8 to $10 million on South City Park.

Working with Project for Public Spaces, a New York City company, the city wants to build an activities plaza, destination playground, multi-use pavilion, covered porch, flex lawn, pickleball courts, youth area and a fenced green area for dogs.

The $3.5 million National Park Services grant would be used for the first phase of the project, which could include the playground, pickleball courts, flex lawn, entry plaza and youth area.

Costs for all improvements at South City Park could be up to $10 million, which exceeds the $2.5 million the city has put toward the project, “and staff is seeking additional funding to begin engineering and construction of the plan,” the council staff report said.

Mezzano said the notion that improving the park will fix the homeless problem in the area is wrong.

“Everybody seems to think once you do that (park improvements), the unsheltered that frequent the (Redding) Library are going to disappear and that couldn’t be further from the truth,” Mezzano said.

Both Dacquisto and Mezzano also have gone on record supporting a proposal Redding Colt 45s General Manager Rick Bosetti brought to the council last June, to instead build a youth baseball field and bandstand.

The Redding Colt 45s play at the park’s Tiger Field and have made improvements to the facility to bring people back to a park that had been abandoned.

Regardless, Tiger Field isn’t going anywhere whatever happens at South City Park.

Last January, the city hosted an open house at the park, and it asked the public to choose what activities they want to see at the park. A baseball field, as a write-in candidate, was the top choice, Mezzano said.

“No consideration for a junior baseball field is in the city’s plan. I don’t get that,” he said.

However, Mezzano conceded that he doesn't know if a baseball field would alleviate the homeless problems in the area.

Community Services Director Kim Niemer said a baseball field would take up so much space that there wouldn’t be enough room to build the other amenities.

“I think the promise of the plan that is being proposed is that in order to get enough attendance and activities, you have to layer on a variety of events … so you have people coming and going to different features all the time,” she said.

Meanwhile, Dacquisto said a big reason why he voted no on Nov. 15 was that he doesn’t have confidence that Niemer, the parks director, can manage the project.

As an example, he points to Big League Dreams, which hasn’t paid rent to the city since the first quarter of March 2019. The park pays the city a percentage of its gross receipts.

“I don’t understand why there’s been no action (to collect the rent),” Dacquisto said. “To my knowledge, nobody has noticed them to pay rent. … Nobody did anything.”

Redding City Manager Barry Tippin said the COVID-19 pandemic and Big League Dreams' recent change in ownership are why the city has not been receiving rent.

“We don’t have all of the quarterly reports to determine how much they owe, and they owe nothing for the time they were closed (about 1 year) as the payments are based on 6% of the gross proceeds,” Tippin said in an email to the Record Searchlight.  “My best guess is they owe between $125,000 to $175,000.  Both the previous owners and the new owners have assured the city that they will pay in full and I have no reason to doubt them at this time.”

Munns is expecting a huge turnout for his first council meeting and knows the stakes are high for the future of South City Park.

“I have read everything that I can read, I met with everybody who wanted to meet with me from both sides of aisle, so to speak,” Munns said. “I know there is going to be a lot of concerns voiced tomorrow.”

Munns says he plans to make an informed decision based on what he hears.

Audette did not return a phone message seeking comment.

New mayor will be appointed

Before the council discusses South City Park, it will appoint a new mayor, vice mayor and mayor pro tempore.

The city council typically reorganizes at its first December meeting of each year and city code does not direct the council on how to select its new mayor.

This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: New council will take up future of Redding's South City Park