Yorba Linda seeks input on naming new dog park

During the 50 years since Yorba Linda was incorporated in 1967, city councils have attached names to 39 parks and other public facilities, occasionally following but often ignoring a 1974 council motion and 1976 resolution regarding name selection.

Procedures are now under way to name the city's newest facility, a dog park on a half-acre upper slope at Jean Woodard Park, south of Eastside Park, north of Esperanza Road. Bids to build the park, estimated at $300,000, were submitted, with an award expected March 21.

Meanwhile, residents are invited to suggest names through an online survey slated for the city website or on hard copies available at city facilities. In addition, the public can suggest names at a March 16 Parks and Recreation Commission meeting beginning at 7 p.m. at City Hall.

The council-appointed commissioners will review survey results and public testimony before making a decision on a name to be forwarded to the council for probable action on March 21.

Council members aren't required to accept the commission's choice. In 1989, the panel ran a naming contest, but the winning Country Trails Park was ignored, and the park west of Village Center Drive was named after YMCA and Girl Scout leader Lucia Kust.

The council first tackled the naming matter in 1974 with a motion “that parks bear the names of trees and other flora indigenous to Yorba Linda and the entire Southern California region.”

The unanimously adopted motion followed one of two naming options forwarded to the council by a then-active beautification committee. The other option was names of birds.

A 1976 resolution “to establish a policy that parks, streets and public facilities shall bear environmentally appropriate names rather than the name of any person, living or dead,” was adopted on a 4-0 vote with one absence.

The resolution honored the memory of the late planning commissioner, council member and mayor George Machado, a key architect of the city's first General Plan and advocate of low-density and slow growth.

A Machado memorial was placed on the horse trail southeast of the Casa Loma Avenue and Imperial Highway intersection after his 1976 death. He often expressed strong opposition to naming city facilities after individuals.

However, the sentiment stated in the resolution “was never established or adopted as part of the City Council Policy Manual,” Parks and Recreation Director Mike Kudron reported to commissioners at a November 2016 meeting.

Kudron also noted that in 2009 the council received and filed a naming policy, “indicating that because this issue does not come to them often, they would prefer to consider the naming of parks and facilities on a case-by-case basis....”

The city has named facilities after nine individuals: Kust, Woodard, Hurless Barton, Roland Bigonger, Nathan Shapell, Jessamyn West, Susanna Bixby, Thomas Lasorda Jr. and Phillip Paxton, all posthumously.