Some residents want city to improve park’s drainage system
rather than get rid of duck’s home
Some residents want city to improve park’s drainage system rather than get rid of duck’s home
n By Tony Burchyns
Staff Writer
Morgan Hill – Some residents are worried the city may do away with its only duck pond as efforts to refurbish Community Park continue.
“Other parks in the city have fields, but this is the only unique one that has a duck pond,” said Midori Torgerson, who lives in unincorporated Morgan Hill. “My only concern is that I’ve seen people leave their (domestic) ducks here and they can’t take care of themselves in the wild.”
Others said the pond’s popularity with children makes it worth keeping.
“When we moved here and saw the pond with the ducks, we said, ‘That’s so great! We’ll be able to bring our grand kids down to feed the ducks and the geese,’ ” said Jeannie Batacan, who relocated to Morgan Hill from San Jose last year with her husband Raoul Batacan.
The couple wants the city to remodel the pond to reflect Vasona Lake County Park in Los Gatos, but Raoul said he understands how cleaning up after ducks could be concern.
“They make a mess with all the droppings,” he said, adding migrating Canadian geese increase the problem during the winter.
Pastor William Downing of Sovereign Grace Baptist Church, which is located next to Community Park on Edmundson Avenue, said he enjoys the geese and ducks that sometimes nest in the shrubs around his chapel.
“This is the prettiest park in Morgan Hill,” Downing said. “People love the park, and they don’t want it changed.”
Construction is underway on new tennis courts and other features at the park, and the next phase of the approximately $3.5-million renovation project calls for removing the duck pond and building multipurpose athletic fields in its place.
Residents who enjoy visiting the duck pond say it’s home to dozens of migrating and “permanent” ducks and geese, has therapeutic value for older residents and is popular among children.Â
The Morgan Hill Parks and Recreation Commission wrestled with the fate of the pond last year, deciding that improving the watery habitat with pumps and filters would cost the city more money over the long haul than building fields.Â
While no firm cost estimates were made, Deputy Director of Morgan Hill’s Department of Public Works Operations Mori Struve said sprucing up the pond would certainly cost more than getting rid of it.Â
“With regard to the lake, it has a mud bottom and it never had a filtration system,” Struve said, adding the pond’s primary purpose is to pool runoff during the winter. “It really wasn’t looked at initially as, ‘Let’s make the nicest pond feature we can for the park.’ ”
Whether to enhance the pond or get rid of it was discussed in 2004 and 2005 by the Parks and Recreation Commission, Struve said, as the four phases of the Community Park Master Plan were finalized.
Construction began last week on phase one of the project, including new tennis courts, a basketball court, picnic areas and a public bathroom. The pond will remain untouched as construction continues until May. Future phases of the Community Park improvement project aren’t funded or scheduled, but money could come from the Morgan Hill Redevelopment Agency.
Winter flooding is a big concern for Downing, too. The pond overflowed last year, he said, indicating a large quantity of runoff came from nearby hills. The solution, Struve said, should the pond be removed, would be to “recess” the park’s fields so they could retain rain water like Nordstrom Park does.
Marilyn Librers, a member of the Parks and Recreation Commission, said the commission welcomes public input on the duck pond’s future but probably wouldn’t change the master plan, if at all, until funding is identified for the next phase of construction.
As to the commission’s stance, Librers said it was solid for the moment.
“We feel the fields would be used by more people,” she said. “There’s a hand full of people want to look at ducks, there are many who want to use sports fields.”
