Park gets new light on life

COSTA MESA — Vicente Hernandez lives in a choice location for a parent of two young children. His family’s apartment on Shalimar Drive perches over a park with swings, a jungle gym and a bench for grown-ups to sit and watch. But until a few weeks ago, Hernandez’ son and daughter never ventured outside after dusk.

Shalimar Park, the smallest park in Costa Mesa, had turned into a haven for gang members in the evening, and the sun often rose on graffiti and discarded beer bottles. That wasn’t a rare sight on Shalimar Drive, which resides in one of the Westside’s poorest areas, but the 1.7-acre park had an additional problem — it turned nearly pitch black after dark, as vandals repeatedly shattered the lamps that rose a few feet off the ground.

“They would just break the light bulbs and throw them out,” Hernandez said through a translator Tuesday evening as he gathered in the newly shining park with a group of neighbors. “There was a picnic table here, and they would graffiti on it.”

Hernandez, though, wasn’t the only Shalimar resident concerned about the play area’s safety. The Mika Community Development Corporation, a Christian nonprofit dedicated to improving life on the Westside, approached the city this spring for help in cleaning up the park.

The city came through and provided bricks for the planters, flowers and shrubs for the garden — and a towering street light that now makes Shalimar Park the brightest stretch on the block.

Tonight at 5:30 p.m., Mika plans to host a community celebration in the new Shalimar Park, with neighbors, city officials and others in attendance.

“It goes back to them,” said Bruce Hartley, the maintenance manager for Costa Mesa, who worked with Mika on the project. “All we did is give them some resources along the way.”

In April, Mika approached the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission and asked for help in cleaning and illuminating the park. The commission agreed to lend a hand, and over the next few months, officials worked alongside residents to repaint the playground and put plants in the mostly barren dirt.

The park at the time had minimal lighting, with a single lamp in the back that mostly pointed away from the park and half a dozen shorter lights whose bulbs rarely survived long. City officials adjusted the lamp in back so it beamed across the park and added a new pole with two lamps by the sidewalk.

Tuesday at dusk, a group of neighbors gathered under the glow of the lights as children played on the swings and bars.

Effy Sanchez, Mika’s neighborhood advisor for Shalimar, said the park barely resembled the dark spot she used to speed by after work.

“Now it’s a new park,” she said. “Tomorrow is a big day for us.”

MICHAEL MILLER may be reached at (714) 966-4617 or at michael.miller@latimes.com.