Amanda Lee has been taking her son to Paragon for jiu-jitsu classes near Ortega Park for several years. She and her 5-year-old daughter usually hang out at the gym for the lesson.
Not once has she ever walked across the street to Ortega Park so that her daughter could enjoy the play structure. Not until Monday afternoon.
“To be totally honest, we have been going to Paragon the last few years, but I never let her come over here because I have always just heard that it is a dirty park, and that there was just a lot of activity going there that you didn’t want your kids around,” Lee told Noozhawk. “If a park has a play structure and it is luring kids, especially kids who don’t have their parents with them all the time, then absolutely there is no space for drinking, drugs, any of that, in our parks. Obviously, I wish I had the answer to the growing homeless problem, but it seems to be really affecting our entire city on so many different levels.”
Santa Barbara’s parks, particularly on the city’s Eastside, have become ground zero for a political, personal and possibly legal battle over public health and safety.
A crowd of people, some of them drinking alcohol, were gathered Monday at the park, less than 50 yards from the playground. Small, single-serve hard liquor bottles were visible, as were beer cans and cigarette butts.
A few blocks away, the problems are much worse.
At Plaza Vera Cruz on Haley Street, a 4-year-old boy recently was pricked by a discarded hypodermic needle that he found on the park’s play structure.
The boy had to undergo a series of drug treatments to prevent HIV and hepatitis. It will take several more months to determine whether the boy contracted any disease. The boy’s family is represented by attorney A. Barry Cappello.
“There are certain city parks that are a serious danger to users, including citizens and tourists alike,” Cappello told Noozhawk. “They are a haven for drunks and drug addicts. Needles, feces, trash permeate several of them. The abusers of these substances are often themselves abusive, aggressive and downright scary to ordinary park users.”
Plaza Vera Cruz has a nickname, “Needle Park,” Cappello said, adding that the city has known about the drug problems for years and has done nothing about it.
He claims the he city administrator, the Parks & Recreation director and the police chief are all as responsible as the mayor and council members.
After the incident, Cappello’s firm sent a letter to the city demanding a hearing before the City Council.
“Despite our simple request to be heard, no two council members have the gumption to put it on the agenda so my client can tell her story,” Cappello said. “We will give them a few more weeks to decide to be good representatives, or we will take it to the court system.
“It will not be a simple suit for personal injury. It will be akin to taking over this function by a ‘monitor’ appointed by the courts to properly govern the city parks to protect its citizens, something the council and mayor have abjectly failed to do.”
Councilman Jason Dominguez in October asked that the matter be placed on a City Council agenda, but was shut down by Mayor Cathy Murillo because the item came up during public comment and was not on the agenda for discussion.
“Everyone should feel safe in our parks,” Dominguez said. “Kids and their parents don’t, and have stopped coming to the parks. People have overdosed and are openly using drugs and alcohol even on Sunday afternoons.”
Dominguez recently showed a video at a council meeting of people drinking alcohol at parks in his district.
“Police and fire respond when they can at enormous cost to taxpayers,” Dominguez said. “The council needs to take action now before another child is hurt. Recently, a 4-year-old stabbed himself with a hypodermic needle it found in the park and another one tested positive for THC after swallowing something in the park.
“Action is called for, and doing nothing is not an option. Since when do lawbreakers have more right to the parks than kids?”
Murillo said the Parks & Recreation Department plans to update its safety plan and that this fiscal year’s budget hearings will look at adding more police patrols or maybe another park ranger.
The department, she said, must do a proper report before the council can take any action.
“Our public parks and open spaces are a precious resource for our residents, and we must ensure they are safe and clean,” Murillo told Noozhawk.
Noozhawk reached out to all of the council members, the police chief, the city administrator, the city attorney and the parks and recreation director for this story. Chief Lori Luhnow did not respond, and City Administrator Paul Casey said he had no comment.
Anthony Wagner, the Police Department‘s public engagement officer, said, “Our parks are safe, and we are regularly patrolling them. Any sort of illicit activity will be dealt with swiftly.”
Alcohol is banned in most city parks, unless users obtain a special permit.
Ortega Park has been a focus of the Police Department for the past 18 months, Wagner said.
When the park is full of people playing youth baseball, soccer, basketball or on the playground, alcohol drinkers usually are not present, he said. They show up when nothing is going on at the park.
He said what happened at Vera Cruz park was “scary.”
“The good thing is that statistically this is an anomaly,” Wagner said. “We don’t have a plethora of kids getting pricked by needles.”
Parks & Recreation Director Jill Zachary said the needle prick at Vera Cruz Park is troubling.
“This incident is of grave concern to the department.,” Zachary said. “We do not want harm to come to any child in a park and strive to achieve clean and safe parks and recreation spaces. Parks staff are trained in the proper handling of sharps and other biohazards and remove anything that is found during regularly scheduled park maintenance.
“Unfortunately, given the breadth of our responsibilities and limited staff resources, we cannot stage parks staff in parks full time.”
Zachary said the department plans to “remove the playground in the near future as well as undertake planning efforts to revitalize the park.”
Zachary added that the department plans to work with park rangers, the Police Department and the City Attorney’s Office to address issues such as vandalism, illegal activities, and situations such as conflict between park users, disruptive park users or activities that make others feel unsafe.
City Attorney Ariel Calonne said the city is doing its best to enforce existing laws to preserve public spaces.
“My first reaction is as a parent, my heart goes out to anyone facing a terrifying injury to their child,” Calonne said. “I hope the child is OK.”
He said the Parks & Recreation staff is extensively trained on “sharps” management and dealing with other biohazards that are left in the parks.
“The city’s public facilities are, to my knowledge, regularly maintained, and any biohazards are addressed as they are found,” Calonne said. “It is, of course, impossible to stop 100 percent of the dangerous litter that ends up in our parks and ecosystem.”
Calonne said the city is looking at other legal strategies for the parks, but that many of the behaviors are related to chronic mental illness or addiction, neither of which lends itself to solutions by threat of incarceration or fines.
“I should note that the City Council this year funded a new deputy city prosecutor who will work full time on code enforcement, including protection of public spaces,” Calonne said.
Councilman Eric Friedman said he sees problems at Oak Park and MacKenzie Park, too.
“As a parent of two elementary school children, I share concerns about safety in our parks,” Friedman said. “Our parks are a critical part of our quality of life and serve as a central hub for community building.”
Friedman said he is working with the city attorney to add Americorps outreach workers who would be designated specifically for parks.
Councilman Gregg Hart said his heart hurts over the needle-prick incident.
“As a parent, I am deeply saddened that a young child and family are suffering through the medical treatment necessitated by an accidental needle prick in a city park,” Hart said. “Parks Department employees work very hard to maintain our community parks at a high standard. Park rangers and police officers patrol city parks to prevent illegal activities.
“I sincerely hope this child recovers fully from this incident.”
For Lee and her 5-year-old daughter, finding drug paraphernalia on the playground has “always been in the back of my mind.”
She has lived in the area for more than 20 years, and she said she feels most safe taking her children to Shoreline Park on the Mesa.
“I shy away from more downtown parks, unfortunately,” Lee said.
— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
