CAMARILLO : Residents Help in Renovation Effort at Park

Maybe it would be more thrilling to have your own star on the sidewalk of Hollywood Boulevard, but Dorothy Duncan said she was tickled to see a brick engraved with her name in the walkway at Camarillo’s Constitution Park.

“It’s funny, isn’t it, how people are?” the 53-year-old Duncan said. “But it’s something about seeing your name in bricks. It’s kind of small-town fun.”

As part of a fund-raising effort for the renovation of Constitution Park, Duncan, her husband and many other Camarillo residents purchased 2,000 engraved bricks for $25 apiece.

Volunteers, including Duncan’s husband, laid the bricks last weekend in a new walkway through the park, one of the finishing touches to the first phase of the park’s renovation.

The renovation project also included digging a shallow, earthen bowl around the park’s concert pavilion, laying fresh sod and planting trees.

Done entirely with volunteer labor, the renovation’s first phase has taken five years and cost $195,000 for materials, said Assistant City Manager Larry Davis, who serves as treasurer for the volunteer Camarillo Constitution Park Committee.

Fund raising for the renovation took longer than expected because of the recession, Davis said. “It was a remarkable effort considering the times,” he said.

Committee members are now trying to raise another $100,000 for the second phase of renovation, which will include adding lights and park benches, Davis said.

Even before the renovation began, Constitution Park had become a favorite site for citywide festivals and activities, said Planning Commissioner William Q. Liebmann, who serves as chairman of the park committee.

“One of the things people like about Camarillo is it has a small-town feeling and Constitution Park has a lot of the feel and atmosphere of small towns of 50 or more years ago,” Liebmann said.

The committee will dedicate the newly renovated park at a ceremony June 26 at 7 p.m., after which a singing competition will be held at the concert pavilion.