What are we asking for? What would we like to see at the park? Sometimes the best way to answer that question is to just take a good look at parks and nature preserves that are managed well. The Del Paso Park and its surrounding neighborhoods and natural reserves deserve the same. 

Across from Del Paso Regional Park on the south side of Auburn Boulevard is the Mission Oaks Recreation and Park District.  We encourage you to check out their parks.  MORPD parks are clean, well maintained, rules enforced and patrolled.  The neighborhoods surrounding Del Paso Regional Park have endured the lack of attention and the unlawful behavior that City of Sacramento has allowed to spill out into our community for decades.  We deserve a park like the ones you find right next door in the Sacramento County MORPD system. 

Another wonder example is the Effie Yeaw Nature Center’s interpretive trails and natural beauty. 

 “The Nature Center is part of a 100-acre nature preserve with riparian and oak woodlands, shrub lands, meadows, and aquatic habitats.” (quote from their website)

We encourage you to take a look at how natural habitats there are preserved and protected so current and future generations may enjoy. 

Please see letter (name withheld for privacy) from a county resident near the park in support of working towards a reorganization of local control of the Park.

“I live across Auburn Boulevard from Del Paso Park. I have lived here for ten (10) years. When my family moved here from the Land Park area, we were excited to have a more natural park available to us, as that better suited our hobbies than the parks located deeper in the City.
My family has been affiliated with a local running group for years. Having a trail versus a track at our local park was ideal. Unfortunately, injuries have been sustained while training on the trail at Del Paso Park. One incident was in 2018 and due to a hole in the ground on the trail. That hole existed for over two (2) years, and the danger was concealed whenever the grass was tall or freshly cut with the clippings left on the grass. Notice of this danger was sent to the City. A copy of the letter is attached.
This dangerous condition was resolved when the new trails were installed at Del Paso Park. It is my understanding that these trails were installed as a result of a State project and not due to the City’s maintenance or improvement.
There have been concerns with the play structure at Del Paso Park and a lack of maintenance. Onece incident involved a gross mass of unknown substance on one of the platforms. It was seen and left to remain by Park maintenance crew. A report was filed with the City in October, 2021. Several months passed before the substances was finally removed/cleared from the platform, likely an easy task just delayed by the City’s lack of prioritizing maintenance as Del Paso Park. A copy of the report is attached.
While the park is a natural environment, it does require maintenance. The City successfully realized and mitigated risk of fire from overgrowth and included Del Paso Park as part of the “Grazing Pilot Program” in August-September, 2021. The goats and sheep were back in 2022, but their time grazing the park was much shorter than the year prior and the reduction of fire fuels was not as effective. On September 7, 2022, 4.5 acres of Del Paso Park burned, across the street from homes (https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/firefighters-stop-forward-progress-on-4-acre-fire-at-del paso-regional-park/). Thanks to the efforts of Sacramento Fire Department, the fire was contained and there were no injuries. However, this fast fire could have been better mitigated, maybe even prevented, if the park was better maintained.
The City of Sacramento does not prioritize the maintenance of and improvements to Del Paso Park. Its bare minimum approach even contributes to dangerous conditions, as was the case of the hole in the ground on the trail covered with grass clippings. The risks to use the park are more than unreasonable, even with the new trails, due to downed trees that the City allows to remain and block the trails. This park is not important to the City. But it is important to us, the people who live around it and use it. A better maintained Del Paso Park keeps its visitors safe as well as properly manages the natural resources and supporting wildlife that exist there. Please, Sacramento County, assume the maintenance and management of Del Paso Park. Please save Del Paso Park.“

Statement of intent from our organizers:

We support the communities surrounding Del Paso Regional Park in their effort to reorganize local government control of that portion of the park east of Watt Avenue, and move ownership of the park from Sacramento City to Sacramento County. We concur that given the unique history, Natural Habitat, open space, and recreational opportunities afforded in Del Paso Regional Park, that these unique amenities of Sacramento County should be treated and preserved as a park for current and future generations to experience.

We understand that having a park owned and controlled by the City of Sacramento, which is surrounded by unincorporated county residents, is an undesirable and untenable situation. City decisions for the park are made without fear of neighborhood repercussions. Because County Voters do not vote in City elections, County residents have to endure the lack of city attention to the park, which currently, and throughout the history of the park, has fostered unlawful behavior that has spilled into the surrounding neighborhoods.

We approve of this re-organizational effort, and look forward to neighbors surrounding the park as well as the whole Sacramento Community being successful in this endeavor.

Save Del Paso Park!