{"id":226432,"date":"2019-06-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-29T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/vista-la-mesa-park-reopens-as-national-demonstration-site\/"},"modified":"2019-06-29T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-29T07:00:00","slug":"vista-la-mesa-park-reopens-as-national-demonstration-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/vista-la-mesa-park-reopens-as-national-demonstration-site\/","title":{"rendered":"Vista La Mesa Park reopens as national demonstration site"},"content":{"rendered":"

Por JEFF CLEMETSON | Mensajero de La Mesa<\/p>\n

On May 28, the city of La Mesa held a ribbon cutting for the rededication of Vista La Mesa Park. The neighborhood park, located at 3955 King St., recently underwent a redesign and renovation and in the process was designated a national demonstration site to study playground use by children.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the new world, children as young as 1 years old have a tablet in their hand,\u201d said Mayor Mark Arapostathis. \u201cThe idea of being socialized and understanding how to socialize with other young people, there needs to be open space [for that] and we\u2019re fortunate that we have 14 of these open spaces in La Mesa \u2014 and people do make use of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new, upgraded park features were funded with donations by EDCO Disposal, La Mesa Park & Recreation Foundation, Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and the California Parks and Recreation Society\u2019s (CPRS) statewide Healthy Play Initiative in partnership with playground equipment companies GameTime and Playcore.<\/p>\n

The Healthy Play Initiative is a program that gives discounts for new playground equipment to cities that agree to become national demonstration sites.<\/p>\n

\"Vista<\/a>
An EDCO play truck is a feature of the new playground. (Photos by Jeff Clemetson)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll start collecting data and see how active kids are and what they do, what features they like the best,\u201d said La Mesa Community Services Director Sue Richardson. \u201cSo that not only helps the playground manufacturers figure out what kids like to do, but it also gathers data for children\u2019s health.\u201d<\/p>\n

La Mesa will gather data, basically observing and writing down what the children play on in Vista La Mesa Park with help of SDSU students, Richardson added.<\/p>\n

\"Vista<\/a>
A young La Mesa resident on the new playground structure at Vista La Mesa Park (Photo by Jeff Clemetson)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The new GameTime playground at Vista La Mesa Park features an EDCO truck play structure for ages 2-5 with educational nature and recycle signs nearby. The play structure for ages 5-12 has a tree house with notched stumps for climbing, slides, a tree swing, leaf seat, spinning cattail, and a tree stump balance beam. It is designed to be an overall fun playground for children to use their imagination and be active outdoors.
\nOther upgrades at the park include new landscaping with added trees and a completely regraded grass area to fix flooding issues; new lighting; a sidewalk that circles the park providing an avenue for children and adults to walk around the entire park for fun and physical activity; exercise equipment placed for parents to watch their children play ball or on the playground; a renovated horseshoe pit; new picnic tables and benches spread throughout the park; a new restroom roof; and a new monument entryway. And one feature Richardson said is new to La Mesa parks:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is our very first park that has shade on the top.\u201d<\/p>\n

- Comun\u00edquese con Jeff Clemetson en jeff@sdnews.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By JEFF CLEMETSON | La Mesa Courier On May 28, the city of La Mesa held a ribbon cutting for the rededication of Vista La Mesa Park. The neighborhood park, located at 3955 King St., recently underwent a redesign and renovation and in the process was designated a national demonstration site to study playground use […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":778,"featured_media":224954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11548","_seopress_titles_title":"Vista La Mesa Park reopens as national demonstration site","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11548,11551,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-226432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-mesa-courier","category-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/778"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}