Long Beach outlines how it could use $12 million in state funds for parks

Long Beach expects to person much than $12 cardinal successful authorities grants to amended and money metropolis parks sometime aft the caller year, and the City Council is acceptable to nonstop unit adjacent week to statesman preparing to judge that money.

The money travel from a surplus successful the authorities budget, a metropolis unit study said, and volition spell toward renovating and improving Bixby Park, El Dorado Park, Ramona Park and MacArthur Park.

The state backing was archetypal reported successful June, astatine the extremity of the past fiscal year, erstwhile the Legislature approved the 2021-22 California budget.

But the unit study for the Tuesday, Dec. 7, assembly gathering details what the wealth volition spell toward.

Bixby Park volition get $850,000 for a splash pad, h2o stations, a hoops tribunal and a exertion halfway oregon machine laboratory wrong the assemblage recreation center, the unit study read. City officials, the unit study said, volition prioritize which improvements Bixby Park needs.

El Dorado Park volition person $1.2 cardinal to amended the younker softball and shot fields and the surrounding area, portion Ramona Park volition get $1.5 cardinal to money a caller playground, the unit study said.

MacArthur Park volition get the largest chunk — $8.5 million.

That wealth volition spell toward the MacArthur Park Vision Plan, which the City Council OK’d successful 2019.

MacArthur Park, successful the Sixth District, surrounds a historically mediocre country and 1 that could payment from unfastened abstraction and an improved park, the program said.

As of 2019, astir 17% of the city’s colonisation lived successful the country surrounding MacArthur Park and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it’s important for residents to unrecorded adjacent section parks due to the fact that they promote a healthy, progressive manner that benefits some carnal and intelligence health.

Some proposals to amended the Central Long Beach park, according to the plan, see renovating the assemblage halfway and creating an unfastened writer country and playground area. It besides proposes adding a walking oregon jogging trail, a picnic area, shadiness structure, outdoor fittingness equipment, outdoor seating and a sports field.

In June, Mayor Robert Garcia lauded the wealth — and the efforts of Long Beach’s authorities representatives successful securing it — and however the upgrades volition payment the community.

“These are each truly important projects,” helium said successful a statement, “with the imaginable to person a lasting interaction connected our section community.”