The Signal Hill City Council agreed during its Tuesday, Aug. 24 meeting to create a subcommittee to rename and redesign a planned park—currently called View Park—under construction at Cherry Avenue and E. Burnett Street.
Aly Mancini, community services director, said the Parks and Recreation Commission had already formed a two-member subcommittee in April to design the park’s planned environmental education components.
Since then, however, the council agreed to consider Vice Mayor Keir Jones’s proposal to change the park’s name to Remembrance Park and add education stations on Signal Hill’s history.
Jones said his idea stemmed from attending a June memorial commemorating the 40th anniversary of Ron Settles’s death while in Signal Hill Police Department custody, organized in part by Settles’s aunt Juanita Matthews.
“They really emphasized the importance of remembering these historical points,” Jones said. “It really showed how far our city has come.”
Besides recognizing Settles, Jones said the park could highlight Signal Hill’s first mayor, Jessie Nelson, who may have been the first female mayor in the country, appointed shortly after women received the right to vote.
“I see this as an opportunity to provide a space to continue to share our story,” Jones said, comparing the idea to Hilltop Park’s historical elements.
Matthews—who earlier in the meeting had asked the council to agendize a future discussion of an official Ron Settles remembrance day and plaque—said she supported the idea of renaming the park and adding historical education, especially in light of Settles’s legacy.
“The culture of the city has been changed by his death,” she said.
The newly expanded View Park subcommittee will consist of Mayor Edward Wilson, Councilmember Lori Woods, Parks and Recreation Commissioner Pam Dutch Hughes and Commissioner Terry Rogers, Mancini, and yet-to-be-determined members of the Sustainable City Committee and Diversity Coalition Committee.
The subcommittee will seek public input as it decides on a new park name and which historical figures and events from the city’s past to feature. The council will still have to approve any proposed changes.
The council had already earmarked $100,000 for previously planned environmental education signage in the park, Mancini said, adding that she was confident any additional historical features could be covered by that budgeted amount.
While the environmental education elements should be in place when the park is scheduled to open next spring, the historical education features may have to be added later, perhaps unveiled at the anniversary of the park’s grand opening, Mancini said.
The park’s design includes a landscaped bluff along Cherry Avenue with a decomposed granite trail leading to three sitting areas with views. It also features a stormwater infiltration system, or “dry wells,” to help prevent runoff and related environmental education signage, as required by the San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy, which funded $2.4 million of the park’s $3.3 million price tag.
Mancini suggested that the historical elements be placed within the bluff along Cherry Avenue.
“The bluff provides unparalleled view opportunities that naturally evoke feelings of peace and contemplation, which would reflect the nature of this design element,” she said.
Councilmember Tina Hansen suggested Memory Point Park as another renaming option, and allowing residents to purchase pavers in the park with names of deceased loved ones.
Hansen also expressed concern about possible public dissent over which historical events and people to feature.
Woods suggested “revolving remembrances”—annual updates of the historical elements featured in the park.
“There is a lot to celebrate in Signal Hill,” Woods said. “There is a lot to remember—how we’ve come to be where we are, and the future.”
