Council gives direction for Bernal design competition Council gives direction for Bernal design competition (March 05, 2004)

Plans must include eight lighted sports fields
by Dolores Fox Ciardelli

The City Council moved forward Tuesday night with plans for the design competition for the 318-acre Bernal property, adding the requirement that proposals must include eight lighted sports fields.

The sports community began circulating an initiative two weeks ago to preserve a 30-50-acre community park site in the northeast corner of the Bernal property to use for sports fields. Initiative founder Jerry Thorne, chairman of the Parks and Recreation Committee, reported Tuesday night that they had 40 percent of the 3,800 signatures needed to get a "Save Our Community Park" initiative on the November ballot.

"I personally am willing to put the initiative on the ballot so people don't have to go out and collect signatures," said Mayor Tom Pico. "I don't see that this has to be a battle of opposing forces. We should be able to have a great dialog go on and see if there's another design to fit the community better."

Councilwoman Kay Ayala agreed and suggested adding eight lighted fields to requirements for the design competition but still giving flexibility to designers.

"Wow," commented Councilwoman Jennifer Hosterman. "This must be an election year."

Ayala responded that minutes from previous meetings would show that council members had always wanted to see lighted sports field built as soon as possible.

"We wanted to move it quickly," said Ayala. "Never has anybody ever fluctuated from that. ... I believe we could work with the makers of the initiative to include what they've looked for plus other entities in the city."

Pico made a motion to follow staff recommendations for the Bernal property design competition and to ask that the design competition require, as a minimum, a design plan that incorporates all the elements of the initiative.

Ayala then made a substitute motion that the entire acreage be free and open to designers, but include eight lighted sports fields, and baseball fields close to existing infrastructure to facilitate early construction. She noted that the fields will probably stay in the same place but this motion gives designers the ability to move some of the community park features away from the fields.

The motion passed, with Pico and Hosterman voting against it.

Hosterman, who headed the Bernal Task Force that planned 20 uses on the 318 acres, stated again that she is against the design competition.

"We should have embarked on this three years ago, but we didn't," she said. "I find it difficult to believe that we could come up with a design that looks better than this that we spent over $200,000 on."

"I don't believe we're throwing out what we've done," said Councilman Steve Brozosky. "This will be a culmination of what we've done."

Brozosky also noted that the Bernal property was listed as an asset for the first time in the city's 2002-03 audit, with land given to the city valued at $130 million.

The cost for the design competition is estimated at a maximum of $90,000. If the winning designer does not get hired for the project, he or she will be awarded $10,000.

Thorne said Wednesday morning that his group would most likely continue to collect signatures for their initiative. "It will probably be a better situation if we have the signatures and are ready to go to ballot," he said.

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