The city of San Diego will use $8.5 million in settlement funds from SeaWorld’s unpaid rent lawsuit to improve public parks – but some of the city’s South Bay residents are feeling ignored.
Members of the Otay Mesa-Nestor Community Planning Group noted that, of the 15 projects slated for 11 city parks, none in their community made the list.
“I’m not just frustrated, I’m very disappointed. I’m disillusioned, and I wonder what the heck is going on,” planning group member and area resident Alberto Estrada told inewsource. “I do not believe it’s fair because the residents of the whole city of San Diego deserve just as much as anybody else.”
According to a city spokesperson, because SeaWorld is a Mission Bay leaseholder, the money from the settlement must be spent on capital improvement projects paid for through Mission Bay Park and San Diego Regional Park funds.
The money cannot be used for other neighborhood park projects, the spokesperson said.
San Diego’s city charter has dictated how the city can use money from Mission Bay leases since 2008. Each year, the first $20 million goes into the San Diego general fund to be used for any city purpose. The rest is split between the two improvement funds with the majority going to the Mission Bay Park Improvement Fund, which solely benefits a 164-acre zone encompassing Mission Bay Park.
The most significant chunk of the settlement money, totaling $3.7 million, will pay for bathroom upgrades and playground improvements at Robb Field park in Ocean Beach. A request for the construction of a picnic shelter at Robb Field has been on the city’s unfunded park improvements list for about three decades.
More than two dozen parks have outstanding requests for improvements from the 1990s or earlier, including Montgomery-Waller Community Park.
The nature of these projects can be anything from community planning and recreation group recommendations such as renovating fields, expanding parking lots, or constructing picnic shelters to capital improvement projects including lighting installation, or window replacement.
Montgomery-Waller Community Park has been on the city’s unfunded park improvements list for 28 years. Park advocates have pushed for lighting upgrades and feel left in the dark about why it’s taken so long to find the money, Estrada said at a July 9 community planning group meeting.
“Politicians come and politicians go, and they’ll say: ‘The community has been underserved for years and years and years.’ But at the end of the day, what are you doing about it?” Estrada told inewsource.
The Parks Master Plan, which is part of the city’s Parks For All of Us initiative, calls San Diego’s park system “inequitable” and aims to create a more level playing field for residents across the city. The plan states the city’s goal is to prioritize historically underserved communities by allowing them to receive funds from a pool of city-collected fees.
Prior to this change, the city collected impact fees from developers and limited the use of that money to benefit the area near the development. The city changed that policy in 2022, allowing the money to be spent in other communities.
Under the new approach, with money gathered from fees collected from across San Diego, the city approved funding for 19 park projects within areas identified as a “Community of Concern” last year. The 19 projects included two parks in San Ysidro selected for a total of $2 million in upgrades. Montgomery-Waller was not on the list, but city officials say they’re working on finding more funding.
“The City continues to seek funding sources for projects like lighting upgrades at Montgomery-Waller Park,” a city representative told inewsource.
Over time, Otay Mesa-Nestor development impact fees have generated around $6.1 million, one of the lower community revenues, compared to the highest of $208 million gathered from Pacific Highlands Ranch. The Otay Mesa-Nestor fund has about $500,000 in its account, and the planning group could offer recommendations for its use.
Located next to the Otay Mesa-Nestor Library and near Montgomery High School, the park has two basketball courts with lights, multipurpose fields, a walking trail and a playground. The area is used to host annual events like a spring egg hunt and winter snow day. The rec center, which recently received a new gymnasium floor and upgrades to the scoreboard, is also one of the busiest summer cooling centers in the city.
The 60-acre park is frequently crowded, according to Dotty Giffen, the president of the Otay Mesa Community Recreation Group. She estimates it’s one of the busiest parks in the area.
Giffen said people have been advocating for lighting improvements for decades, submitting many formal requests to the city council and parks department.
She said the group has been told that when money is found, the city will fund the project. “But it’s slated at one to two million (dollars),” Giffen said. “That’s a lot of money, and money always goes somewhere else.”
Luckie Waller Little League uses Montgomery-Waller Park fields, but league representative Gerardo Quintana-Roo said the lack of lighting limits their ability to play. One field does not have any lighting and the existing lighting on other fields does not meet baseball standards, he said.
Jay Villanueva, area manager for the park said that lights aren’t rated bright enough for baseball and other sports.
Luckie Waller Baseball’s safety officer, Joann Fouquette, said other community programs use the fields, too, which causes damage to the grass. She said allowing kids to play without adequate lighting could easily turn into a bad situation.
The little league has between 225 and 250 players but expects more than 300 by next spring, according to Quintana-Roo.
Other local leagues host Friday Night Lights at their own fields, but the Luckie Waller league can’t offer the same event to participating kids because of substandard lighting, Fouquette said.
“It’s an experience that we’re taking away from our kids because we don’t have the appropriate resources for it.”
The city usually responds to field lighting requests by saying they don’t have enough money for the expensive bulbs, according to Fouquette, who said Luckie Waller has probably been asking the city for improvements for the same amount of time as community members have been asking for lights across the whole park.
Estrada said that he doesn’t expect all the lights to be fixed in one fiscal year, but wonders why no one is offering any kind of solution.
“I know it’s not easy, but for Christ’s sake, show some progress. Figure a way to slowly but surely improve our community,” Estrada said. “I think we deserve it.”
Villanueva said there are not enough lights on walking paths and in parking lots, which has been a concern for years.
Beyond baseball, Fouquette said the safety of the park as a whole is a community concern, citing issues with car break-ins when it gets dark.
“It’s just not safe to walk around the park,” she said. “There’s no light. You can’t see anything.”
inewsource reached out to San Diego Councilmember Vivian Moreno, who represents the Otay Mesa-Nestor area, a few times in July, including sending emailed questions to a spokesperson for Moreno, who responded saying she was unavailable for comment “due to scheduling.”
inewsource also contacted Council President Joe LaCava who declined to comment for this story.
