Park solution heads to home

Hopes that the Little League field at Wardlow Park will be saved

rounded second earlier this month, though it still is an iffy bet

whether it will make it all the way home.

The park’s future has been in doubt since February, when the

Fountain Valley School District Board of Trustees decided to put

Wardlow Elementary School up for sale, along with two other surplus

campuses. The threat of the sale struck Little League officials

especially hard since they had just put in $300,000 in improvements.

They wasted little time in striking up opposition.

The difficulty, though, is not in opposing the plan but in finding

a solution. The district, rightly, wants to get top dollar for the

land. And the only logical bidder, if the park is going to remain

public, is the city, which is not flush with cash and in the past has

not been successful in persuading residents to pay for such purchases

via bond measures.

Now, though, there appears to be growing areas of potential

compromise between the district and the city that could save the

park. The district’s assistant superintendent of business, Barry

Blade, has said the district might be willing to give some of the

park to the city in exchange for a loosening of building requirements

that could raise the property’s value, estimated near $25 million.

And the Huntington Beach City Council last week at least suggested it

is interested in the property by unanimously voting to take a

procedural step under state education law that would give it first

rights to the property.

Both are welcome developments that seem headed for a perfect

solution in which the city gets the part of the land where the field

is, for a reasonable sum that doesn’t bust the bank. The school

district still gets its money. Little League keeps its field. And for

the kids, the hits keep coming.