Excess dirt from sports park to be used as filler at Las Animas
while officials ponder what to do next
Gilroy – A dirt-covered field of dreams will replace the pond at Las Animas Veterans Park as the city explores the question – what should we build to make them come?
The dried out two-acre pond that many residents regard as a weed-infested eyesore is being filled after 15 years – compliments of excess soil from the sports park project – but it remains unclear when the city will have the cash or the vision to flesh out the area.
Gilroy parks and facilities manager Bill Headley said that by next spring, the city will fill in the now-drained pond and level it with surrounding areas, eliminating the island once connected to the park by a bridge.
Headley said that budget constraints have prevented officials from pursing plans to lay turf or the irrigation it would require. Instead, they will leave the expanse of dirt in place for a year or more as a new task force develops a unified vision for the park.
“We are opening the playbook and reviewing it to see what needs to be changed to meet future needs,” Headley said. “The pond and its diverted drainage flow gives us some options we didn’t have before … I’d hate to see us put some park improvements in there and then find out if a tennis court is going to go on top of it.”
The Gilroy Tennis Club’s offer to build a tennis-court complex free of charge to the city led council members to call for a task force, charged with developing plans for the entire 30-acre park. The task force, expected to begin its work in January, will examine both the tennis court offer and potential uses of the former pond site. In the short term, the park’s list of improvements include an additional tennis court and an upgraded children’s play area scheduled to open this weekend.
Dave Shipe, who has lived on Arnold Drive just south of the park for 15 years, said the city should at least lay grass seed while the task force performs its work.
“They can’t just leave it as dirt,” he said. “That’s ridiculous. Why not just leave the pond?”
He supported the creation of a picnic area or new sports facilities on the site.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing anything as long as it’s utilized,” Shipe said.
In recent years, the park and the island in the center of the pond have served as a rest spot for the homeless, especially during winter days when the nearby National Guard Armory shelter is closed.
Las Animas Veterans Park was first built in 1976, according to Headley, who said the pond was a major attraction in its early days. The natural water flow from Miller Slough from the park’s northwest corner filled the pond in winter, while the city used well-water to fill it in the summer months. But the pond has rarely reached full capacity since a drought in the mid-’80s led to stiffer water-conservation requirements, preventing officials from filling it in the summer.
“It’s basically been a weed eyesore,” Headley said, “and periodically, as long as we didn’t have soggy conditions, we would knock the weeds down.”
City Councilman Craig Gartman has placed the development of parks at the top of his priority list. He joked that some children might see the bare dirt where the pond once stood as “a mud-puddle to play in,” but added the city should look into laying grass in the short term.
Gartman said he would let the task force decide the best options for the pond’s future, but he had at least one suggestion.
“There’s always the option of just putting grass in there,” Gartman said. “Sometimes a field of grass allows the imagination to create its own activities, instead of spending money putting an activity out there.”
