SAVE FAIRVIEW PARK

 

*latest news* July 23rd, 2008 - The Costa Mesa Parks Commission has voted to designate Fairview Park as a passive park. This is good news for the wildlife there. Fairview Park is first and foremost a Nature Park. Any designation other than passive will impact the wildlife and vegetation and the peace and quiet humans get from the park. Make sure to show up to the next City Council meeting to make sure the council endorses this vote and express to them how important it is to protect Costa Mesa's only nature park. If you can't make it in person, make sure to write a letter expressing the same. For legit sports teams there are plenty of legit sports fields to play on here in Costa Mesa. In all... there are more than 30 urban style city parks. That's not including elementary school sports fields, junior high school sports fields, high school sports fields, and college sports fields including track fields and stadiums. There is also The Farm Sports Complex, Tewinkle Sports Complex, Airplane Park sports fields, OC Fairgrounds, Fairview Developmental Center, and National Guard property. Costa Mesa doesn't lack urban parks or sports fields by any means.

*other news* There is evidence the city of Costa Mesa is killing all of the squirrels and gophers in the park. This has many negative consequences for the fragile ecosystem of the park that is already stressed from 2 years of drought. One of these consequences is that it is probably killing the Burrowing Owls that live in the same tunnels used and made by the squirrels and gophers. Another issue is without squirrels and gophers, there is no one to make homes for the Burrowing Owls since they don't actually dig their own home as the name might suggest. Killing off the squirrels and gophers also impacts the animals that feed on these animals such as the raptors and hawks. Make sure to write the city of Costa Mesa and get them to stop killing the wildlife of Fairview Nature Park.

*good news* On November 7th, 2007, the Costa Mesa City Council voted to reject anymore urban activity at Fairview Park. Mayor Allan Mansoor, Mayor Pro-Tem Eric Bever, Wendy Leece, and Linda Dixon voted against Katrina Foley's idea to build an extremely large lighted concrete skate park along with an accompanying large parking lot in known Burrowing Owl habitat. At the end of the meeting, eventually all voted to keep the park true to it's orginal nature, a passive nature park. Mayor Mansoor and Mayor Pro Tem Bever also went the extra distance to prevent the construction of a temporary building on the east side of the park. This building was approved and may some day become permanent. Ultimately this might be a good thing if it can be used as a multi-purpose room or interpretive center much like the Muth center in Newport Beach's Back Bay. However, we believe anymore more activity added other than Goat Hill Junction or The Soaring Society will have a detrimental impact on the park. Here is a link to an article that was printed in the Daily Pilot regarding the big win (link).

 

Fairview Park Biological Report (link)

A nice .pdf file of the vegetation at Fairview Park (link)

Fairview Park Vegetation Communities (link)

Master Plan (link)

Pictures of Fairview Park Wildlife (link)

Pictures of Fairview Park February 7, 2010 (link)

Daily Pilot article about Native American archaeological sites at Fairview Park (link)

Photo above of a Red Tailed Hawk flying above Fairview Park © 2007 Glenn Price.