Daily Bulletin writer Wendy Rubick had an article about Claremont's Sycamore Canyon Park, which Rubick indicated has been closed since 2002 due to fire damage, presumably as a result of the Williams Fire.
Last Thursday, Claremont officials had a public meeting to gather input on the park's restoration. According to Rubick's piece, Mark von Wodtke at the Claremont Environmental Design Group is working with the city on putting a prospective restoration budget together for the Claremont Community Services Commission's next meeting on January 8th. Ironically, Community Services was responsible for plowing under von Wodtke's ACORN Project's oak seedlings in the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park earlier this year.
Rubick also wrote that there will be some significant state permitting costs, and that the City cannot afford to fund the restoration out of the city's budget. All of which means the the City will have to go begging once again for grant funds. However, Rubick also indicated that the state's budget issues may make it difficult to secure grants tied to the sale of state bonds:
State regulatory agencies, such as the Department of Fish and Game and Regional Water Quality Control Board, will need to process paperwork and issue permits before the park reopens.
The DFG permit is estimated to cost from $100,000 to $150,000.
"We're aggressively pursuing grants," Carroll said.
The City Council will otherwise not be able to fund the project, he said.
Tim Worley, 47, director of water policy for Rivers and Mountains Conservancy, said the state on Thursday announced a freeze on expenditures of all bond funds.
Grants provided through the conservancy were already allocated for other projects.
Worley, incidentally, is an alumnus of the Claremont Graduate University and studied political science (not hydrology, oddly enough). In any case, Claremont is fortunate to have received that money from the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy for Padua Park ($850,000) and a separate, much smaller grant for Marilee Scaff's Memorial Marsh project last October, before all this hit.
Here's an image from the city's website:
10/14/08, Funding Mission Accomplished:Rivers and Mountains Conservancy Executive Officer Belinda Faustinos
presented the City with a check for $850,000
for the Urban Park grant award.
This all makes us wonder how many projects in other cities throughout the Inland Empire and the San Gabriel Valley (some worthy, some not) are going to go unfunded because of the state finances are screwed up.
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