West Covina workshop gathers residents and students; safety, restrooms and pickleball rise as top needs

City of West Covina staff and elected officials hosted a public parks and recreation master-plan workshop where residents — including multiple school-age speakers — pressed the city to address park safety, restroom cleanliness and maintenance, and demand for more pickleball courts and youth facilities.

The workshop included a brief presentation by city staff outlining the five-stage master-plan process, a summary of preliminary results from an earlier workshop and group exercises for residents to propose program and facility priorities. City staff said the plan will guide recommendations and funding strategies through November and that results from this workshop and an online survey will be posted on the project website and reviewed at a third workshop on July 7 at the West Covina Sportsplex.

Why it matters: the master plan will shape where the city directs maintenance dollars, facility upgrades and program expansion. Residents told planners they want safer parks, cleaner restrooms, more family and youth programming, and more courts and fields for emerging sports.

Most speakers urged tangible improvements to park maintenance and safety. Planner/facilitator Zach (first name used in the workshop) framed the effort as community-driven and said the plan will “develop recommendations specific to your community.” He emphasized that staff would gather, weigh and summarize community input before producing final recommendations.

Students who spoke directly to council members described specific problems and safety concerns. Charlie, a third grader, said the softball-field restroom had a broken stall door and urged repairs so teams would not miss games. Sixth-grader Jeremy Zabozza recounted being followed after playing at Friendship Park and called for more frequent security patrols: “I strongly believe it would help if a security guard was patrolling the park more often to keep creeps up and looking out for strange behavior,” he told workshop attendees. Other youth asked for bike racks, splash pads, permanent soccer goals and ADA-accessible swings.

Groups that worked at tables produced overlapping lists of priorities. Items repeatedly suggested during table presentations included additional pickleball courts or multiuse courts that can accommodate tennis and pickleball; improved restroom facilities across multiple parks; expanded senior programming and computer classes; upgrades to Cortez Park’s football field; expanded use and maintenance of Ridge Riders equestrian facilities; more dog-park space; native-plant and pollinator gardens; and enhanced youth sports fields and amenities.

City staff presented summary findings from the earlier April 29 workshop and initial surveys, which identified community strengths (safety, parks and recreation, cleanliness, neighborhood character, education and accessibility) and concerns (homelessness, maintenance backlogs, safety and vandalism, parking at parks, and funding constraints). Zach reiterated that the project will include stakeholder interviews, a multimodal statistically valid survey, in-person and virtual workshops, and an online feedback form that will remain open through the planning process.

The workshop closed with staff reminding attendees that the next, third workshop will be July 7 at the West Covina Sportsplex and that the team will post results from tonight’s session and the online survey. Staff also noted opportunities for residents to submit additional handwritten comment cards or use the project’s online feedback button for ideas not captured in tonight’s exercises.

The city did not propose or adopt any formal measures during the workshop; the meeting was an information-gathering and community-engagement session to inform later recommendations and budget considerations.