Dueling Visions Covet Island in an Urban Sea

In Northeast Los Angeles, residents, soccer aficionados, environmentalists and even high school students are arguing over the future of a pristine jewel in their midst: 190 acres of rolling grasslands in the Ascot Hills.

On the one hand, the locals and die-hard soccer enthusiasts support a plan by City Councilman Nick Pacheco to create a recreation park on a 30-acre portion of the mountainous, city-owned preserve, which borders the communities of El Sereno and Hillside Village. That park would include two soccer fields, two softball diamonds, a recreation center and possibly a rink for skateboarders.

Supporters say a new park atop one of the area’s two north-south ridges would help remedy the critical shortage of parkland and recreation facilities, especially for soccer, in the Northeast region.

“This is a worthwhile cause,” said Tammy Membreno, director of the nonprofit Barrio Action agency in El Sereno, which works with young people. “There are a lot of youth in El Sereno who could be at this park, doing a lot of things that are positive.”

“I support this because we need it,” added longtime Hillside Village resident Connie Farfun.

However, environmentalists and others say Pacheco’s plan would destroy a natural habitat for wildlife and vegetation because of the heavy grading that would be required to create the soccer and softball fields. Instead, they favor opening up portions of the now-restricted and mainly fenced-off hills, owned by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, for hiking trails and nature exhibits.

Among those holding that viewpoint is Stan Katase, head of Wilson High School’s Environmental Science Academy, who regularly leads students on walks through the surrounding hills to test the soil and water and observe the area’s wildlife, such as hawks and snakes.

“I played in these hills as a kid,” said Katase, who grew up in Hillside Village. “We would be destroying a habitat that is one of the last links to L.A.’s past. Once it’s gone, it’s never coming back.”

Melanie Winter, executive director of the Friends of the Los Angeles River, opposes the loss of valuable watershed in the Ascot Hills.

“We’re keenly aware of the need for more recreation space in Los Angeles,” she said, but “this isn’t the best place for soccer fields.”

It’s easy to see why both sides covet the Ascot Hills, which are bordered by Soto Street on the west, Wilson High on the south and housing tracts on the north and east. Mostly undeveloped DWP property, the hills are an expanse of open space with some walnut and palm trees and a long history.

Los Angeles’ most famous auto racetrack in the 1920s and 30s, the Legion Ascot Speedway, attracted large crowds there. Although the raceway burned down in 1934, the Ascot name stuck to the area, even though there were several other Ascot tracks in town. A onetime water reservoir, now an underground storage tank, atop the hills bears the Ascot name.

Residential developments eventually hemmed in those Eastside hills. And in the late 1960s, a new home for Wilson High, which outgrew the campus now used by El Sereno Middle School, was cut out of the southernmost section.

But except for some radio transmitters and a small DWP training center, the Ascot Hills have remained untouched.

Several years ago, Richard Alatorre, Pacheco’s politically savvy predecessor on the Los Angeles City Council, proposed a much bigger park that would have taken up virtually all of the 190 acres within the Ascot Hills. But the veteran councilman was unable to garner widespread support because of fears that such a “regional” park might draw traffic and troublemakers.

Now, Pacheco has embraced a scaled-down park of only 30 acres, including property for an entrance road on Soto. He acknowledges that his support for the project partly stems from his desire to soften his previous image as a career prosecutor who was hard on youthful offenders.

In last year’s runoff campaign to succeed Alatorre, Pacheco and challenger Victor Griego both pledged during a meeting at an El Sereno church to create more soccer fields.

Pacheco said he wants to fulfill that pledge. “This is very important to me,” he said in a recent interview. “This gives me an opportunity to provide positive alternatives for our children.”

Some local environmentalists, like Scott Wilson, president of North East Trees, have mixed emotions about Pacheco’s plans because they want to have good relations with him. But they grind their teeth about the project.

“They’re going take at least 50 feet off the tops of those hills to make it work,” Wilson said of the proposed grading to create flat playing fields.

Opponents also pointed to a study of the area by Jerry Schneider, undertaken to earn a master’s degree at Cal Poly Pomona. Schneider envisioned a wilderness area untouched by development that could be studied by students at nearby schools. The report says badgers, king snakes, owls and red-tailed hawks are among the wildlife there now.

Pacheco said he wonders if some of the more sensitive wildlife mentioned in Schneider’s report is actually there. But he said he intends to push for nature trails and appropriate places in other parts of the Ascot Hills where area students can study.

On a recent morning, six 11th-graders at Wilson--Rocilo Espinoza, Vincent David Nieto, Gustavo Gonzalez, Bonnie Nguon, Paulina Serrano and Albert Martinez--trekked through an unfenced part of the hills, discovering snail shells, pointing at the various types of trees and giggling over the discovery of an owl above them in a tree.

The six are so opposed to the recreation facilities that they have gone to recent community meetings, complete with display boards, to get their point across.

“Before we took this class,” Espinoza said, “we didn’t know what was out here. How can we study the environment if you don’t have the hills?”

On the other side is 40-year-old Hugo Garcia, a self-admitted soccer nut from Guatemala who runs a print shop in El Sereno.

Garcia, whose three daughters and wife also play soccer, sponsors a girls’ soccer team, but it can’t play in El Sereno because there are no facilities dedicated to the sport there. So, the team must play in South El Monte. And he drives to Alhambra, Baldwin Park and Pasadena to coach other games.

“They’re happy to have me there as a coach, but there should be something here in El Sereno,” he said. “It’s in us to play soccer. This is the commitment [to soccer] that gave me wings of independence. I want to give back to it.”

The need for the soccer fields hit home a few years ago when he and several relatives were asked to leave a local park because soccer playing wasn’t allow there.

“We were a family playing there, and they threw us out,” Garcia recalled. “That’s a good reason why a park [for soccer] is such a great thing.”