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Visit
the new Action
Page for email, phone numbers, petitions, and letters to the
editor.
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Four simple steps you
can take to
preserve open space at Allan Witt Park:
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- Customize and send an email
to the City Council demanding that voters be allowed to decide the
future of Allan Witt Park. We can help you write your message.
- Print flyers
and petitions
to let people know what is being proposed and collect signatures to
stop the sale of public park land for private development
- Call City Council members and send
them individual email - their email
address links
and phone
numbers can be found here
- Send Letters to the Editor of the Daily
Republic and the Vacaville
Reporter - submission restrictions and resources can be found here
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Thank you for
taking action to save our Community Park
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EMAIL or PHONE members of
the City Council. Demand to
vote on this project! Click HERE to email a
letter to the City Council members. Please add your name at the end of
the email. Or you can copy and paste the addresses and text below into
your own email message. In either case, please do not send more than
one message a day.
Or click HERE for phone
numbers.
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T-Shirts!
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2 |
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| Huge
Crowd at Allan Witt Park |
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About 1,000 students in the Fairfield-Suisun
school district converged on Allan Witt Park on October 18, 2006 for
the 30th Annual District Cross-country Meet.
Students from first through sixth grades, with
parents, pets, and staff, gathered together for an afternoon of healthy
family fun organized by the elementary school physical education
teachers.
Boys and girls ran separately in three events
according to grade level - 1/2 mile for grades 1 and 2, 3/4 mile for
3rd and 4th grades, and a full mile for 5th and 6th graders.
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Over
a
thousand people gather at Allan Witt Park in Fairfield as children
participated in the Fairfield-Suisun school district's 30th
Annual District Cross-country Meet on Wednesday October 18, 2006.
(Photo by Zachary Kaufman (c) 2005
Daily Republic)
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Walk the Parks week October 9 to 13, 2006
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October 9th through 13th is another opportunity
to get some healthy exercise in some terrific Fairfield parks, with a
special bonus on Thursday October 12th - a chance to be on TV!
As before, there are three hour-long sessions at
a different park each day. Early bird and morning sessions run from 6AM
to 7AM and
7AM to 8AM, and one evening session from 7PM to 8PM. Click
on this link for a map. To see
a photo of the parks, double click its pushpin on the map and then
click Bird's eye view on the zoom/navigation toolbar.
Here are the locations for October:
| Mon
Oct
9 |
Tolenas
Park
(off Tolenas and Caitlin Dr) |
| Tue
Oct
10 |
Laurel
Creek
Park (off Cement Hill Rd) |
| Wed
Oct
11 |
Meadow
Park
(of Meadowlark Dr) |
| Thu
Oct 12 |
ALLAN
WITT PARK (West Texas St) - Ch 26 taping! |
| Fri
Oct
13 |
Sunrise
Park
(off Camrose St) |
Special note:
On Thursday Oct 12 from 8:00AM to
8:30AM (after the morning walk at
Allan Witt Park), Channel 26 will be taping a segment about the
Fairfield Community Services Walk the Parks program that has
been taking place each month since July. Todd Grames, Fairfield Arts
and Community Events coordinator, has asked that people stay for the
taping on Thursday if possible (or just show up at 8AM). So if you want
to help spread the word and motivate others to get some healthy
exercise, please stop by Allan Witt
Park at 8AM on Thursday morning.
See an aerial of the Allan Witt Park loop below,
and read an account of the July all-day Walk around that loop.
Please come join us. Bring other family members.
Bring your neighbors. Explore some beautiful parks, get some healthy
exercise and maybe even get seen on TV!
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PARKS
MAP link
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Picnic
and Community Day in the Park
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On
Sunday August 27, 2006, the
Friends of Allan Witt Park joined with members of the community to
enjoy
an afternoon in the park. The afternoon was pleasantly warm and sunny
with a light breeze to
keep us cool. Highlights were the delectable egg rolls from Hong Kuan, the
new Vietnamese
restaurant on West Texas St at Pennsylvania Ave (courtesy of Josephine,
the 'Can Lady' of Allan Witt Park!), fresh vegetable trays, two kinds
of caviar(!), homemade brownies, and lots of good conversation.
Thank you to all those who stopped by to support our efforts to
preserve and improve the park.
We continue to discover that many people either do not know about the plans
to sell 1/3 of the park, or think that the project has been
dropped. Our outreach activities help inform residents, particularly
park visitors, about the City's plans
to sell part of the park to pay for constuction of a
privately-operated sports
complex on Cordelia Rd. (click here for
simple actions you can take to save the park)
A special 'Thank You!' to the many volunteers who stayed afterwards
to help pick
up litter at the playground and picnic areas 'adopted' by the Friends
of Allan Witt Park. We made several pick-up passes through the picnic
areas,
where many gatherings enjoyed the cool, shaded park setting well into
the twilight! Thanks also to the Public Works
department of the City of Fairfield for letting us borrow their
litter pick-up sticks (what are those things called anyway? Please email
us if you know)
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Photos available soon...
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A Day in
the Life of Allan Witt Park - July 19, 2006
 Wednesday July 19, 2006 seemed like a
good day for a stroll in the park. Six tennis courts and all four
softball fields, plus the outdoor basketball courts, the picnic/BBQ
area, playgrounds and of course the Skate Park we all used during the
day and over two hundred people visited the park!
Fix yourself something cool to drink, sit down, take off your shoes,
relax, get comfortable, and read about a 42.5 mile walk
in Allan Witt Park. Click here for the
entire report
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At the February 7, 2006 City
Council meeting, a revised site plan for the Allan Witt Park
Development project (called the '389' plan) was presented. The revised
plan, along with the prior version (now called the 434 plan) is to be
considered in the
draft EIR which is now expected in September¹, 2006. We have
completed
our analysis
of the 389 plan, which has fewer negatives than the 434 plan. Read
our analysis...
¹according to city planner David White as of July 5,
2006 |
[click on image
to switch overlay]
Update
on Recent Activities
Earth Day
Festival - 04/22/2006
The Friends of Allan Witt Park were invited to help with the Sierra
Club booth at the City of Fairfield's Earth Day Festival on the new
Solano County government building plaza downtown on Saturday (April 22).
The event was lightly attended, but seemed livelier than last year with
more activities, including live music. Previously the city gave free
lunch and stocked the pond by the Civic Center where the event was
held. There was a fishing contest, but no live music. The city hopes to
get more sponsors next year and do more promotion, including signs and
banners on Texas St. to draw in passers-by. The parking arrangements
may also need
to be improved, possibly directing cars to the new parking structure
behind the government center.
A few dozen people talked to us about Allan Witt Park. Many were new in
the area and knew nothing about it. We collected more signatures on
petitions and we handed out the brand new updated
flyer² to many who
wanted to learn more about the proposal for private residential
development in Allan Witt Park before signing.
We also got a chance to speak to Mayor Harry Price for a few minutes
early in the day. He encouraged us to continue our efforts to influence
the proposal. I asked him to sign our petition, but he declined,
correctly pointing out that it would not be wise to take a position
until the upcoming draft EIR had been reviewed and the matter was
brought before the City Council.
We gave the Mayor one of our new
flyers and he offered some
suggestions, such as placing the City Council contact
information first, adding phone numbers for Councilmembers, and moving
Staff contact information to the bottom. Was suggesting to add Council
phone numbers a gentle hint that phone calls are more effective than
emails? Councilmember Marilyn Farley also attended the event, but only
waved from a distance, and did
not visit the Sierra Club booth or talk to us.
²We also have a brand new
petition to preserve all 8 tennis courts at Allan Witt Park.
Preliminary Appraisal Received - 04/18/2006
After months of stalling and broken promises, the city sold Brad Smith
a copy
of the appraisal of the property in and adjacent to Allan Witt Park
that is being proposed to be sold to developers Triad and Centex.
The appraisal
is
dated September 9, 2005 and was prepared by Garland and Associates
(Fairfield). We will present a
full analysis soon, but here are some preliminary observations:
- The land is appraised at $20 million
- The appraiser estimates that entitlements will cost
$2 million³
- The appraiser estimates that on-site and off-tract
costs will be $8 million³
- The appraiser calculates 'Fair Market Value' to be
$10 million
Entitlement
costs³ have included Land Planning ($200K), Landscape Design
($150K), Civil Engineering ($320K), Residential Design ($150K),
Application Fees ($30K), Environmental Analysis ($350K), Legal Services
($85K), Graphic Production ($30K!), Assessment Consultant ($15K),
Communication/Outreach ($50K!), Other Technical Consultants ($50K),
Project Management ($296K!), and of course a Contingency Reserve
($259K!)
On-site costs³ have
included Demolition of Park Amenities ($1.5 million!), Caltrans Site
Cleanup ($100K!), Temporary Ballfield Relocation Allowance ($50K!), Water Treatment Plant Site Contaminated Soil Removal and
Replacement ($487K!), and of course a Contingency Reserve ($320K!)
Off-Tract Costs³
have included Park Loop Road Construction ($1.8 million), WTX-Woolner
Connector Road ($2.1 million), Woolner Avenue Frontage, Traffic Signal
Installation, and Sewer Line Improvements ($685K), and of course a
Contingency Reserve ($685K)
Check back for a more detailed analysis and cost calculations for
various alternatives based on adapting this appraisal to the recent
389-unit site plan and other ideas.
³ (based on the previous '434' site plan of June 2005,
which is
no longer the preferred plan)
Meeting
with Jim Spering - 04/06/2006
At Peets on Travis Blvd a small group of Friends of Allan Witt Park met
with Suisun City Mayor and Solano County Supervisor Candidate Jim
Spering in early April.
Spering said he is very concerned that the park retain its full size.
He said his campaign ran a poll and found that a large majority of
people agreed with that position. He said the friends of Allan Witt
Park have a lot of supporters, but we need to work on the City Council
- mobilize opposition to the project and make sure the Council members
hear from a lot of people, otherwise the project will go forward.
Spering also said he intended to make this an issue in his campaign. He
clearly hopes to win votes by taking the popular position on an issue
on which his opponent has taken the other side. It is unclear whether
he could have any impact on the decision or outcome of this proposal,
even if he is elected to the county Board of Supervisors.
When asked about the similar residential development on softball fields
in Suisun, Spering said there was no similarity between the two
projects - "apples and oranges". The Suisun fields were softball only,
and were moved to a facility that could have four fields instead of
just
two. Allan Witt Park is a multi-use community park - totally different.
Triad Open
House - 03/29/2006
Many Friends of Allan
Witt Park attended the Triad "Open House" at the
Holiday Inn at the end of March to talk to people and keep Triad from
spinning too much distortion on the proposal.
Several members of the Tuesday morning tennis group reported favorable
response to the suggestion that there be at least 6 tennis courts, and
that Triad had said they are looking at ways to preserve 6 courts. (We
still believe all 8 courts should be preserved, but some saw the
increase from initially 2, to currently 4 in the latest site plan, to
potentially 6 in the future, as favorable progress.) We collected names
and phone numbers for the Friends of Allan Witt Park.
It was estimated that 30-40 people showed up in total, but Triad
consultants Jason Keadjian and Mike O'Hara said they felt it was very
successful (maybe the fewer people the better?)
Meeting
with Triad - 03/27/2006
Three Friends of Allan Witt Park met for two hours with Triad Vice
President Curt Johansen, PR Consultant Jason Keadjian and Project
Management Consultant Mike O'Hara at Triad's offices at Hiddenbrooke in
Vallejo to discuss our concerns about the proposal and try to find out
what flexibility might exist.
The meeting was very cordial and polite, but unproductive. Triad acted
suprised that the city was unwilling to heed our suggestions, implying
that little information had been passed along to them. They readily
agreed
that the process started badly. Important early steps like community
meetings to gather ideas and input for the revitalized park had been
overlooked, and claimed they would attempt to take those steps now by
meeting with park neighbors, local schools, parents and other groups.
Johansen expressed concern for the neighborhood children who might
not be able to afford to make use of the proposed multi-sports complex.
Johansen said he is concerned that the needs of underprivileged youth
are met and that park amenities match community needs and expectations.
Triad's modus operandi (and strength) seems to be to listen to all
stakeholders and incorporate at least some of what everybody wants to
gain a degree of concensus from many of them - at least enough to
sufficiently dilute citicism so that there is little strong unified
opposition.
Key points from the meeting:
- Triad is
unwilling to consider a project that leaves the park intact.
They claim that the city would not get enough money for their plans
(building a sports complex, relocating Caltrans), and they did not feel
they could approach the city with such a proposal.
- Triad is
unwilling to support a public vote on the project. The stakes
are too high - they would be unable to recover their expenditures if
the project was voted down. They do not want to take that chance.
New
Site Plan Analysis
02/14/2006
City staff and the developers presented a revised site
plan (dubbed '389') to the Fairfield City Council on Tuesday February
7, 2006. City staff tried to rewrite history and 'spin' the plan in
order to make plan 389 look better that it really is.
Project Manager David White, in comparing the 389 plan to the previous
plan (434), claimed that plan 389 preserved 1.5 acres more park. But
according to the figures presented to Council in June 2005 when plan
434 was unveiled, the difference is a marginal 0.5 acre. Planning and
Development Director Sean Quinn tried to defend the figure, saying the
amount of park space stated in the 434 presentation last year
included an acre of land that was unlikely
to remain under public ownership.
 More significantly, David White's
presentation asserted that of the
12.5 acres of Allan Witt Park that is proposed to be sold, 8 acres are
fenced off basesall fields not accessible to the general public. Here
again the facts differ! The fenced off area is only 5.5 acres, with the
remaining 2.5 acres fully accessible to us all (and heavily used!),
comprising the Fairfield Rotary Skate Park, a parking lot, restrooms
and accessway to the Sports Center.
Read the full analysis!
Click
here for the 389 plan (January 2006)
Click
here for the 434 plan (June 2005)
New
site plan shows some improvement
Note:
our detailed analysis is now available here
It is not possible to discern all the details of the new (January 2006)
site plan from the sketch published in the Daily Republic (01/27/2006).
We will try to get a better image to study. The
following are preliminary observations based on comparison to the June
2005 site plan. More are expected to be added as we are able discern
other details of the concept drawings. A major concern is the city's
reversal of its commitment not to demolish facilities until
replacements are operational.
Improvements:
- The north half of the park remains largely intact
(including the largest trees, shaded picnic areas, and the West Texas
Street frontage)
- Four of the eight existing tennis courts remain
Negatives:
- Park acres lost to housing is substantially unchanged
(13-14 acres)
- Fairfield Rotary Skate Park is demolished
- Proposed road destroys 2 outdoor basketball courts
- Replacement basketball courts and Skate Park destroy
4 tennis courts
- Plan still proposes sale of park land outside the
fenced off baseball fields that is currently used by the general public
- New trees are shown added in the middle of the open
grassy central area
Neutral:
- Lower number of housing units
Check back for more details as they become available....
 January 8, 2006 - Happy
New Year!
The Friends of Allan Witt Park perform community service and clean up
Allan Witt Park.
On Sunday January 8th a group of us spent a delightful couple of hours
at Allan Witt Park cleaning up playgrounds and picnic areas. It was a
beautiful golden afternoon, with park visitors practicing soccer and
baseball, or pushing strollers through the park towards playground
areas where enthusiastic children played noisily.
The absence of wind added to the wonderful experience as14 of us
collected several small bags of trash to help enhance the appearance
and condition of our outstanding community park. Many of us ended up
staying after the work was done, talking about the park and enjoying an
opportunity for social activity in a beautiful setting. Without
exception, whenever we have scheduled an event in the park, people ask
"Why don't we do this more often?" We will certainly provide more
opportunities to enjoy the park in the next few months as the days
lengthen. Thank you to those who helped!
November 15, 2005 - Consulting
contracts totaling over $1.1 MILLION were approved by
the City Council in their final meeting before two newly elected
Councilmen take their seats. Three of the five consulting services
agreements (CSA) cover engineering and project management services for
the preliminary design phase of the proposed Multi-Sports Complex. One
CSA pays for a PR firm to persuade the public to support the proposal.
And half the money $540,000 is
for "input and advice" from Big League Dreams, operators of
baseball parks in Redding, Southern California and Arizona. The BLD
contract is $30,000/month for 18 months from November 15 to June 15,
2007, with no deliverables except "input and advice" and a few
spreadsheets projecting profitability (which BLD would do at their own
expense anyway before agreeing to operate the proposed facility. Read more...
WHIMBREL?
In recent weeks early morning visitors to the park have seen a flock of
unusual birds wandering around the grassy areas in search of something
to eat. We are not certain of the species (and without a digital camera
have not been able to get a photo to post), but a search of the web has
turned up some likely candidates.
The Whimbrel, numenius phaeopus, is a wader in
the large family Scolopacidae.
It
is the one of the most widespread of the curlews,
breeding across much of subarctic North America, Europe and Asia. A
migratory species wintering on coasts in Africa, South America,
south Asia to Australia, it is fairly gregarious outside the
breeding season.
So plan to make an early visit to the park soon to see these unusual
visitors before they leave for warmer southern shores.
The picture below shows whimbrels on a golf course in British Columbia,
Canada (photo by Michael
G Shepard taken May 5, 2004)
ALLAN
WITT PARK JOURNAL
Email
us your own actual experience in the park - include the date and time
of day and anything you want to share. Here are three recent entries in
the Allan Witt Park Diary. Enjoy.
September 17, 2005
A Park Advocate's Report:
As I drove down West Texas Street, I glanced over to the playground
parking lot....No parking. Allan Witt was full of activity today.
The ball players fit into every nook and cranny. The playground
was bustling with activity...[more...]
CLEAN
UP, DON'T GIVE UP THE PARK
I opened up my copy of the Fairfield Observer to find an article on the
Allan Witt Park proposal; the picture of the current proposal took my
breath away. The new plan for the park appalled me, even though this
small city-sponsored pamphlet tried to contain a positive spin: "The
proposed conceptual plan for the Allan Witt Park Project has evolved
reflecting community feedback..."
Read
Jim DeKloe's article published in the August 22, 2005 Daily Republic
TENNIS ANYONE?
Each Tuesday morning at 8:30AM for the past 18 years they have
converged on the tennis courts at Allan Witt Park. After choosing cards
to match up doubles players, this diverse group with a passion for
tennis disperses to three or four of the eight courts at the park for
an hour or two of friendly competitive matches.
We were told that construction of new tennis courts requires a settling
period of up to 2 years between grading and pouring the court surface
to prevent cracking. Little wonder it costs $70,000 to build a court!
And this proposal would destroy over $500,000 worth of perfectly usable
courts to build just two courts a few hundred feet away. Two courts
will not meet the needs of this group, Members of the group have
collected more than 50 signatures on our petitions, and more are on the
way.
The group invited Community Services Director John DeLorenzo to meet
them on a Tuesday morning at the courts, but he has not responded to
their request. Adult Services Supervisor Ron Collins who coordinates
facility reservations spoke to the group on July 26, confirming the
plans to demolish the park's 8 courts, but insisting that the plans for
only two replacement courts were not "set in concrete".
REPORT
BACK: June 22 Fairfield Planning
Commission Meeting
 Watch the rebroadcast on Ch 26
10AM Wednesdays (June 29 and July 6)
The Friends of Allan Witt Park attended the Planning Commission meeting
Wednesday June 22, 2005, and along with others, expressed concerns over
the
proposed development project.
The agenda item was to be an informational
presentation and scoping session
to outline areas to be addressed in the Environmental Impact Report
(EIR). The Commissioners were given a
presentation to similar to what the City Council saw on Tuesday June
21, but this time there
were no hand-picked speakers to support the project.
One of the more passionate speakers was Community Services Commisioner
Maggie Halls, who called for an assessment of the 'ethical
impact' of
this proposal. She asked for increased involvement of the Community
Services Commission which oversees the city's parks and
recreation facilities. The Community Services Commission had already
begun work on plans to
help improve Allan Witt Park before this proposal sprang up a year ago,
but has since been kept out of the process. Ms. Halls also cited
examples of
more sensible revitalization projects which enhanced and
increased parks, such as the Vacaville Creekwalk
project.
During public comment nobody spoke in favor of the proposal, and the
Commissioners all questioned whether the benefits could outweigh the
obvious negatives. None of the Commissioners endorsed the proposal or
had
many positive things to say about it.
Some comments
Commissioners asked for
- information and
details (such as a spreadsheet) to allow comparison and evaluation of
the pros and cons of each component
piece of the project
- an alternative to be examined that excludes sale of
park land
- data on sales of public
park land to private developers in similar projects in other cities,
and
whether any such projects had been initiated by those cities, rather
than
as
a response to community requests
Commissioners expressed concerns about
- the effects of high winds on baseball and
softball at the proposed Sports Complex location at Cordelia and
Chadbourne Rds
- safety near public roadways in the park
- the effects of
noise and lights on residents surrounding the smaller park
- possible
conflicts over parking.
One Commissioner saw a potential for gang
confrontations and turf wars resulting in a more dangerous park with
more
crime.
It was extremely gratifying to hear the Planning Commission raise some
of
the same concerns that have been brushed aside by the city and the
council. The tide is turning, and you all deserve credit for that! Keep
up the great work!
Click
on the
image to see what's proposed here
What
will we say to our
CHILDREN...
when they ask what
happened to their park?
LESS THAN
HALF of the green open space would remain if the
developers get their way. Your community park could be drastically
smaller if you don't speak up NOW to oppose this development.
An afternoon in
the park
On Saturday May
7, 2005, the community and Friends of Allan Witt Park enjoyed an
afternoon of sunshine and sharing in the park. Thank you to all
those who helped make our celebration such a great success!
The
afternoon in the park was truly spectacular! The sun was warm, the
breeze cool, the trees and grass green, the sky blue, and the community
friendly and welcoming. It was indeed a pleasure to spend time
chatting, reminiscing and enjoying
cake and brownies, and saluting Fairfield's former civic leaders who
had the dedication, determination and foresight to set aside such a
beautiful, spacious piece of land for the community to enjoy such a
perfect afternoon!
Even before we had set up our tables we had several
people stop by asking questions, telling stories of favorite park
memories, and wanting to sign our petitions. Some of the people who
came by had attended the original ceremony on May 5, 1973, and many
remembered the park before the trees were tall.
There was a steady
stream of supporters throughout the afternoon, and we had an
opportunity to speak with several city staffers who came to join our
celebration. We learned that the city is expecting a new site plan from
Triad with closer to 400 residential and commercial units.
Although it
was exhausting and lots of preparation, we all felt that this needs to
be repeated soon. So watch this website for details!
These pages have been
compiled by the Friends of Allan
Witt Park from many sources -
Community meetings, conversations with
City officials and park visitors, the Citizen Committee for the Allan
Witt Park Site, the
City of Fairfield website,
and other online resources. The project is currently being shaped by
community input and the City's project team, working with the architect
and developers. For a description of the project, visit the City's website.
To comment, or for more information, or to
express your opinions, post comments on our blog or email the Friends of Allan
Witt Park. We welcome your ideas!
 View
a 360-degree panoramic QuickTime movie of
Allan Witt Park (this is a 3MB file and may take several minutes
to
download. Also the free QuickTime movie
player is required for viewing)
NEW! An analysis
of the 434 site plan map with alarming information!
The 434 site plan to be revealed at the June 22, 2005 EIR Scoping
Session cuts the amount of open
green space in the park to half
the present 36 acres to just 18 acres.
Over $1.6 million of park
amenities now actively used by park visitors would be demolished to
make way for private homes and apartments in the park. Let the City
Council and the Planning Commission know how you feel about this
proposal! Click
here for an analysis of the proposed "redevelopment" areas.
Click
to visit the site plan analysis
page. Allan Witt
Park
(West Texas Street at top)
 Note:
On June 22, 2005 the city is expected to present a
new site plan. Click
here for an
analysis of
the plan.
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