Active sports banned in park

COSTA MESA — Adult soccer and other active sports will be banned at Paularino Park, after the City Council voted Tuesday to designate the park for passive uses only.

The decision came out of community complaints that charging athletes and flying balls prevent people from quietly enjoying the park with children. At a community meeting in May, residents asked that the park be restricted to passive activities because of its small size.

"Neighbors are tired of balls crashing into their windows and soccer players urinating in their bushes," Mesa North Community Assn. President Colin McCarthy told the council. "It's for people to walk their dogs and take their kids. It's not for soccer games."

The council agreed on a 2-1 vote to forbid active sports such as soccer, football and baseball, to post signs explaining the park is passive, and to install trees and boulders to prevent team sports. Councilman Eric Bever and Councilwoman Wendy Leece supported the measure, and Councilwoman Linda Dixon dissented.

Mayor Allan Mansoor and Councilwoman Katrina Foley were absent.

Several residents urged that Paularino Park be considered passive, a designation that could later be applied to other city parks. But Ellen Wright, a 38-year resident of the area, asked the council to think of the residents of multi-family homes on the south side of Paularino Avenue, which don't belong to the Mesa North association.

"Nobody has talked to the people who live across the street, who have dozens if not hundreds of kids," Wright said. "Ours is a nice, quiet neighborhood, but it isn't Leisure World and these children need to be considered."

Leece pointed out that the elementary school adjoining the park offers after-school recreation — flag football, basketball and kickball in different seasons — although those programs end at 5:30 p.m.

"I think that the opportunity is there for those children to participate and not feel like there's no place for them to play," she said.

But Dixon was not pacified. She asked City Attorney Kimberly Hall Barlow whether three kids tossing a baseball around would be banned under the new rules, and when Barlow said it would, Dixon erupted.

"'Pay your taxes but don't let your kids play in the parks' — is that what we're saying?" she said. To Bever, she added, "You just closed a community garden … and you're putting in a parking lot."

Bever insisted it could be dangerous even for kids to throw baseballs if people are walking by with infants in strollers.

"I think the community has spoken. They don't want people playing sports here," he said.