Playground Reopens in Library Park
By Susan Motander
Published: Thursday, January 14th, 2010
Oliver Sherman got a little too close to the oversized ceremonial scissors during the ribbon cutting ritual for the long-awaited grand opening of the Monrovia Library playground. Oliver, who quickly got over his wound, and about 30 of his fellow kids ran to be the first to enjoy the new equipment. - Photo by Terry Miller
Library Park has not had a playground since construction began on the new library in December of 2007. With the ribbon cutting for the new play area last Saturday, that situation has been remedied. Children of Monrovia: Rejoice.
For months the whole park was locked behind a construction fence. Then when the library opened, there was still no play equipment. The equipment is now finally in place thanks to County Supervisor Mike Antonovich.
“Supervisor Antonovich is committed to education and health for our youth,” said the supervisor’s aide, Jay Gomez. “You have a state of the art library which is now joined by state of the art playground equipment. This is a great way for our young people to spend their time when not in school.”
There were not enough funds in the city’s budget to build the play area and the library bond issue monies could not be used for such an area. Antonovich came to the city’s rescue with a $350,000 grant to provide for the installation of a rubberized play surface, fencing, paving and new play equipment. The funds came from the county’s wilderness and recreation monies.
There was several reasons to the delay in the opening of the playground. There were several other projects in the city upon which the city’s public works department was focusing. Ron Bow, the director of that city department said that despite estimates in May that the playground would be complete by last summer, the contract was not even sought for the work until this fall.
The funds were available for the equipment itself, the grant which provided the funds required the contractor to hire “at-risk” youth to work on the project.
“The contractor claimed he could not find ‘at-risk youth’ and asked to be relieved from that requirement,” City Manager Scott Ochoa said. “We declined and put him in tough with Ulisses Gutierrez who immediately found the young people required from the Monrovia Youth Alliance,” Ochoa said.
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