More discussion of Fairview Park planned
The Fairview Park Citizens Advisory Committee is set to meet next week to discuss a variety of topics concerning the 208-acre park.
The meeting, scheduled for 6 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Neighborhood Community Center, 1845 Park Ave., will include presentations about the park’s archaeological aspects.
Since 1972, a small segment of the park, known as the Fairview Indian Site, has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Concerns about the site’s boundaries and the affect that a planned turnaround space within the park might have on the site are likely to be raised at the meeting.
Sylvere Valentin, a Long Beach-based archaeologist and member of the California Cultural Resources Preservation Alliance, is expected to speak. Valentin is concerned that the initial steps for designing the turnaround, planned for the end of Pacific Avenue at the park’s southwestern quadrant, did not follow proper procedures and that the Fairview Indian Site might be harmed by the construction.
Henry Koerper and Destiny Colocho, researchers with Scientific Resource Surveys Inc. (SRS), are also scheduled to speak.
The two are part of a team hired by the city to investigate concerns raised by the California Office of Historic Preservation about the turnaround and its potentially destructive influence on the Fairview Indian Site.
SRS was not hired to do digging or excavation work, Costa Mesa officials have said, just a surface-level assessment of the area’s archaeological significance.
Committee member Anna Vrska will also give a presentation about youth sports.
Adding sports fields within Fairview Park has long been a contested topic among Costa Mesans, with some contending that the park should remain passive open space and others seeing the ample acreage as fulfulling the high demand for fields.
Other agenda topics include recapping the proposed changes to the park’s master plan and examining the park’s northwest quadrant.
In July, committee members suggested adding things like bike trails, a reconstructed Native American village and various sports fields.
