Dear Editor:
I applaud your coverage of news in Coronado and especially the Cays Park Project. I met your reporter, Madeline Yang, at the Dec. 5 City Council meeting and was glad to see her taking notes.
However, I believe the headline and the article in your Dec. 15 edition were misleading. I was initially disturbed by the headline which read, “Cays Park to become sports fields under city master plan.”
There are two statements in this headline: 1) that the City Council voted to make changes to the Cays Park that would devote over one-half (50 percent) of the area of the park to “sports fields”; and 2) that this was a new approach, that the Cays Park did not contain “sports fields” in its current configuration or that “could be transformed into numerous soccer fields” (your words). Also, on page 5, the headline repeated, “Cays Park largely to become sports fields under city plan.”
The facts: The current Cays Park is 16 acres.1 The question before the City Council was “What percentage of the ‘Area Programable for organized Sports’ should be selected for further planning?”
The “Area Programable for organized Sports” is 7.45 acres according to the City, which is only 47 percent of the current Park space. Therefore, “sports fields” never could have been “mostly sports fields” (your subheading).
Consider: The option selected by the Council was: 75 percent (5.59 acres), which is only 35 percent of total acreage.
The design team reported that they had received 1,026 comments from the public, and “There was support for each alternative including specific details or amenities, but Options 100% and 75% generally had more positive comments than the 50% and 25% options.”
The Council also directed the design team to see if another small section of the open space could be identified for “unprogrammed use,” something like “drop in football” or other-than-field use.
Thank you for consideration of my comments.
Sincerely,
RG Head, PhD
Brigadier General, USAF (Ret.)
1Data obtained from City staff, Dec. 18, 2023.
The original story has been edited to provide more clarity on the council’s decision.
