Tehachapi News

Rec & Parks tightening belt, looking ahead

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When Bear Valley Springs left the Tehachapi Valley Recreation and Parks District, it took $100,000 with it. The district’s annual budget is $300,000.

“It's one-third of our budget,” said district Manager Director Gary Opfermann. “We have to evaluate all our programs… if they are not breaking even or are losing money, we have to look at what we are doing.”

Adding to the agony is the demand by the state of California that the district send back $40,000. Opfermann got that letter several weeks ago.

Beginning in March, the reduced district budget of $200,000 will be stretched to run all its recreation programs and facilities.

Opfermann said the district, which has seven employees, has fired three, eliminated some programs and cut back maintenance supplies.

Maintaining the district's popular summertime children's Adventure Camp, he said, will call for “thinking outside the box,” to adjust camp hours and activities -- but not the staffing ratio, which is one staff member for every 10 youngsters.

“You can't skimp on that when you are supervising children who are age four to nine,” he said.

He said some teens volunteer at Adventure Camp and some are paid. The funding crunch will impact the district's ability to pay those teenagers.

The district is looking for ways to maximize rentals of the spacious West Park Activities Center, Opfermann said.

“It's not used as much as it could be,” he said. “After basketball, that's about it.”

Programs at risk

The district makes the building available to the Salvation Army for food distribution and to the Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District for its health fairs.

The center also is the site of the Rec & Parks-sponsored Respite program that gives stressed caregivers a breather each week.

“Those programs will be affected,” Opfermann said. As it is now, “We pay for all that.”

In seeking to share the costs, and the district is looking for new ways to partner and collaborate with the city, the Tehachapi Unified School District, the healthcare district, Kern County and other agencies.

One immediate repercussion of the drop in funding is the truncated schedule of the district's Dye Natatorium swimming pool, which leaves the Tehachapi High School swim team and physical education classes with no place to swim (see accompanying article by Tom Shea).

On their own

Bear Valley Springs Community Services District withdrew, or “detached,” from the Bear Mountain (Arvin) Recreation and Parks District as well as the Tehachapi Valley Recreation & Parks District.

As a result, Bear Valley Springs will begin receiving $120,000 a year in property tax revenue from Kern County beginning in December 2009 for recreation uses.

“When they changed to a gated community, we couldn't get out there to develop facilities,” Opfermann said. “The detachment is good for them, not good for us.”

But Opfermann, who grew up in a large family and knows how to be resourceful, holds fast to the mission of the Rec & Parks district.

Since the district instituted a $2 entry fee for the skate park, for example, some of the regulars have had a hard time coming up with the cash.

Opfermann puts them to work emptying trashcans in the park. One empty can is worth four visits.

“We have never turned a kid away,” he said.

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Park bathrooms trashed

People who persist in vandalizing the bathrooms at Central Park aren't making the district's financial picture any prettier.

While stepped-up police surveillance and volunteers have reined in the graffiti that marred some of the facilities when Opfermann came to the district more than a year ago, vandals zeroed in on the renovated bathrooms at Central Park over the Christmas holiday.

“We re-did the bathrooms with partitions, towel dispensers, paint and new lights,” Opfermann said. “When we opened it, the same day someone graffitied it. That was in December. Our maintenance guys cleaned it up and opened them again.Three days later the vandals busted them up. They kicked in all the toilet paper holders and tried to shove them down the commodes. They were supposed to be vandal-proof.”

He said the toilet paper holders will be replaced this week and the bathrooms re-opened.

The district is instituting new security measures and will keep the bathrooms closed between dusk and dawn.

Over the weekend of Jan. 17-18, Opfermann said, vandals plastered graffiti on surfaces at West Park.

“They were gang members who came up from LA,” Opfermann said. “[Tehachapi Police Chief] Jeff Kermode warned us they expected it to happen. They said two gangs are trying to start a turf war at West Park.”

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Planning ahead for Rec & Parks

Opfermann, his staff and board of directors are not letting the budget setback derail plans for district improvement and expansion.

The district is in the process of moving the Little League fields from Meadowbrook Park in Golden Hills to West Park.

The residents of Golden Hills, he said, wanted a community park with more room for other activities and picnics, and the ball fields took up most of the space. Rec & Parks will keep one adult softball field at Meadowbrook Park.

(To volunteer to help build the new fields at West Park, call Opfermann at his office, 61-822-3228, ext. 11).

Tehachapi Little League is  pitching in to carry out the move to the West Park location, which is a temporary one.

In two to three years, the ultimate destination for the ball fields, badminton, volleyball and other amenities is the district's 20-acre Elijah Morris Memorial Sports Complex site on Dennison, south of the high school. 

The district was not able to gain access to work on the Morris Park site, which is vacant land, until Nov. 29, 2008, because of a lawsuit, Opfermann said.

This spring the district will begin improvements and will finalize plans for the complex.

Opfermann hopes that various partners will work together to tackle the job of building a new pool.

“When I first got here, my goal was to have a new pool within three to five years,” Opfermann said. “I can see it happening with the school district and the city. It could be a reality. We could break ground in 18 months.”

The new pool, he said, would have to be centrally located in the city, perhaps in the field south of Central Park not far from where Dye Natatorium is now.

He also would like to see a complex that includes an in-ground cement skate park and motocross.