Community Coalition: “Let’s Take Our Park Back”

A community coalition’s public meeting Saturday heard a number of concerns voiced about the city’s handling of the Robinson Park Recreation Center renovation project even as the City Council prepared for an important Monday night vote on the project.

Forty community members attended the public meeting discussing Robinson Park Phase II hosted by the Pasadena Community Coalition.

The city’s Robinson Park Recreation Center Renovation Project Steering Committee met last week to tackle how to create greater community engagement and outreach for a project some residents say has lost touch with the community.

The community meeting Saturday was in effect the coalition’s response to the Committee, and demonstrated that community members will take part in the process.

Bringing together key community gatherers of Northwest Pasadena like Gary Moody of NAACP and Carmen Roberts of the local neighborhood association, the coalition called on the area community to act as a “force of one” to get information to other northwest Pasadena residents.

“A lot of people showed up here today. The city process doesn’t get the community there. The steering committee needs to look at the process and why the community is not there. If we don’t show up nothing is going to happen,” Jim Morris of the Pasadena Community Coalition said during the meeting.

One major concern the coalition has is with a city requirement for the project that the architect be responsible for effective and engaging outreach to the community.

“The people that live in this community know how to reach out to our community. If we hire people who live in our community to reach out to us it makes it easier, but if we hire people in San Marino to reach out to Northwest, they don’t know how to do that,” Morris said, adding that the steering committee should tell the city, “The way you’re doing community outreach now does not work, when are you going to learn [that] for years the way you’re doing it does not work? We want our part. We have to come up with a new mechanism to inform our community.”

Three members of the steering committee attended the meeting: Christian Washington, Rose Robinson and Daniel Parker. A lunch of pasta, salad and sausages was served during the meeting.

“The community did an excellent job of showing up, they had valid concerns. At the next steering committee meeting I anticipate these same people to show up,” Christian Washington said who is a member of the steering committee.

While many were pleased with the turnout, a voice from the audience called out that they needed to quadruple their numbers the next time they met. Attendees also voiced wanting to involve more youth and more people and that better outreach is needed for future meetings.

Suggestions were made to send more colorful fliers rather than the throw-away black and white mailers and to do door to door outreach, phone calls and every method possible to meet people “where they are.”

“My goal is that we will have a building that at the end of the day is a service, a service to the community,” Rose Robinson said.   Robinson is the daughter of Mack Robinson, Jackie Robinson’s older brother.

Robinson also said she wanted to look back to when the park was first dedicated in 1972 what the detailed guidelines and purpose of the park was. Robinson remembered times when her aunt served people with the kitchen by hosting a food bank and making the community center a resource for the needs of the community.

“As a community base what was its original purpose? Was it to mirror Jackie Robinson’s lifestyle? If so let’s do that,” Robinson said.

Community member Del Yarbrough voiced a need to develop a list of what the needs are of the people of Northwest Pasadena so that they could ask the city to address those specific needs.

Pastor Terry Turrentine of Deliverance Tabernacle Church Pasadena offered his church as a meeting place to discuss those needs and several at the meeting committed to attending future gatherings. Efforts will be made to write down the concerns of community voice and document exactly what the community hopes the city to build.

“You are the important people here, this is about our kids, its about what you want and what questions you have. Let’s take our park back,” Martin Gordon of the Pasadena Community Coalition said.

The main issues brought forward by speakers at Saturday’s meeting were the importance of hiring local workers at the onset of the project, what the design of the park will be and how the renovation will impact the community’s usage of the park.

“We cannot have a park that is not open to the community. We feel the city of Pasadena should ask the community wants rather than telling the community what we want,” Morris said.

Morris told the attendees he was baffled by the first proposal selection that was rejected by the Council because the city chose the $750,000 proposal when other architect’s submitted plans cost less than half a million.

Local architect Charles Bryant reported on several conversations about the Robinson Park Recreation Center  in which he had participated when he was involved in the Master Planning process. At that stage, Bryant said,  the people involved had voted it was not possible to save the current building and took into account all the current programs and possible new programs that the new building would service. Since the building is a converted mortuary, Bryant said that some parts are simply not salvageable, but the pool and gymnasium could be kept while the rest of the building would be torn down.

Morris referenced how in Phase I the community brought forward 16 young men eligible for work and only one received full time employment; the other 15 were employed for 2 days to satisfy the local hire requirements.

“No one got jobs and now we can’t even use it. We want to call the shots,” Morris said.

Organizers say the mission of the Pasadena Community Coaltion is to be a watchdog for its constituency and assess what its community needs to improve quality of life. The Pasadena Community Coalition has fought several battles in the past regarding better involvement of the community and equality for gender and races. Organizers say their first battle was with the Tournament of Roses over not allowing women or African Americans on their executive board. The coalition has held other demonstrations and spoke up especially about issues of local hire.

The coalition will host future meetings to keep the community informed about developments in regards to the Robinson Park project. Organizers encouraged parents to bring their children to get more youth involved in the process, and to invite neighbors and anyone who might want to voice input on the use of the Robinson Park Recreation Center.

On Monday, November 4, the City Council will vote on the updated architect selection process for the renovation project.

The next official city sponsored meeting of the Robinson Park Recreation Center Renovation Project Steering Committee Meeting will be held on Tuesday, November 19 at 6:00 p.m. at the Jackie Robinson Center.

For more information or to voice your opinion as a community member, contact Martin Gordon and Jim Morris of the Pasadena Community Coalition at (626) 390-5194. Also visit the pasadenacommunitycoalition.com for regular updates and video clips about the project and meetings.

 

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