After more than two decades, the city of Fullerton reopened Union Pacific Park on Jan. 24 as part of its goal to expand park equity and community wellness for the city’s southern districts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The newly renovated park in District 4 comes just one month after the opening of the Union Pacific Trail, which connects the two parks along a road through the currently vacant Independence Park. City officials and neighbors adjacent to the park attended the morning\u2019s ceremony, which marked the park\u2019s long-overdue reopening.<\/p>\n
Edgar Rosales, the Parks and Recreation senior admin analyst, has been part of this project since 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 2003, they (the city) were getting ready to open and then they found out that the soil was contaminated,\u201d Rosales said. \u201cThere was a lot of back and forth between the city and the state in terms of who was at fault.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to the Department of Toxic Substances Control\u2019s 2010 Union Pacific Park Environmental Investigation, the soil was contaminated with harmful chemicals, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and lead. The investigation suspected a connection to the area’s history of being near a previously burned-down warehouse and a gas plant site.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The levels at which the chemicals were detected prompted the park to shut down and undergo remediation, which the state ultimately agreed to pay for and completed in 2011.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By the time the soil was deemed suitable, the funds for the project had diminished and the soil erosion caused the park to remain shut down for a number of years while the city debated the future of the landscape.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With consistent community support and sponsor grants, including PDS Health, Smile Generation and KABOOM!, the city initiated renovations to Union Park. Historically, the community has been recognized as lacking large up-to-date green spaces, compared to the northern districts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Councilmember Ahmad Zahra spoke on behalf of the community\u2019s advocacy efforts to revitalize their neighborhood park and the need to enhance community access across Fullerton.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot afford to let our parks in the most vulnerable parts of our town, the ones that have the least open space, the ones that have the highest density, and the lowest income, to be waiting for years and decades for the children to grow up and not have parks,\u201d Zahra said. \u201cWe need some equity in our city.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n
Districts 4 and 5 combined hold 16 parks with Independence Park being the largest at roughly 10 acres, compared to the 30 green spaces spread across the northern districts 1 and 2. Four more are reserved in District 3 on the east side of Fullerton. \u00a0<\/p>\n
After tedious paperwork, the blueprints for a new playspace were initiated back in June through a \u201cdesign day workshop for parents and children to gather community insight on the playground equipment,\u201d as well as a volunteer day that allowed the community to get their hands dirty, lay the groundwork and plant landscape plants.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The revamped park now includes up-to-date amenities, including a playground, a basketball court and pickleball courts that community members advocated for at council meetings.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Councilmember Shana Charles was in attendance and commended the city for implementing the pickleball courts into the final design.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis pickleball court is connected by this Union Pacific trail to Independence Park. We\u2019ve already approved designs for Independence Park \u2013 that has a larger section of pickleball courts,\u201d Charles said. \u201cThe idea is that we could host tournaments and that people can go easily back and forth between them.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n
In addition, Rosales says the city is looking into providing future amenities tied to the park, such as community garden boxes for interested residents to claim and maintain for an estimated cost of $50 – $100 per year.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After more than two decades, the city of Fullerton reopened Union Pacific Park on Jan. 24 as part…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,2628,78790,78792,78793,78791],"class_list":["post-162494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-fullerton","tag-pacific-union-park","tag-park-reopening","tag-renovated","tag-union-park-trail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}