Social media posts on the condition of the field at Cortez Park got the attention of the city. Now, a revamped field will be played on for an Aug. 27th opening football game.
Tweets and retweets got the ball rolling. West Covina City Councilman Brian Tabatabai picked it up and ran with it. And now, the West Covina Bruins youth football and cheer program will receive a revitalized field at Cortez Park in time for the Aug. 27 opener.
The city stepped in and will spend $15,000 to get the field in playing condition.
It was Tuesday, July 12, and a landscaping crew was working on the field, which did not look good. Some spots had no grass, some grass was dead and there was the overall appearance that the field was unplayable.
“There’s a lot of potholes, uneven areas in the ground where there were trip hazards or safety hazards,” Bruins President Jorge Ortega said.
On Tuesday, July 5, Dennis Flowers — a coach in the Jr. All-American Football program — sent out a tweet via a sports reporter for this newspaper. It contained pictures that showed the poor shape the field was in, and the retweets began.
Ortega, Flowers and a couple of others tried to work on the field over the previous weekend, to no avail, after a rented rototiller – a machine that prepares soil — broke down.
“So I had to return that and wait until this week, and that’s when we got the news from the city,” Ortega said.
To say he is stoked, is putting it mildly.
“Oh, my God, you don’t understand how ecstatic I think all of the board is, the staff and the kids,” said Ortega, whose teams and cheerleader squads are currently practicing at the West Covina Sportsplex.
Ortega said he’s been with the program about eight years, and for the past four years it has been trying to maintain the field. In previous years, he said, water lines broke, and by the time they were repaired, hard dry patches were created that made the players feel like they were landing on concrete.
He said that calls for assistance did not bear fruit in previous years, but he applauded the current city regime for stepping up to the plate.
When councilman Tabatabai saw the situation on Twitter, he sent images to City Manager David Carmany, who has been with the city for just three years.
“I saw the tweet,” Tabatabai said. “Right away, I sent it to our city manager, told him, ‘Hey, we have this issue. What capacity as a city do we have to not only support the Bruins, but make sure this field is ready for them, safe for the community to go ahead and play some football?’ “
Assistant City Manager Roxanne Lerma, who has been with the city for just eight months, was brought into the act by Carmany.
Next thing the Bruins knew, the city was repairing the field and footing the bill.
A crew member from Merchants Landscaping on Tuesday said, among other things, that new seed will be planted and the goal is to make the field playable. Hopefully, beautiful. He said the seeding is expected to be completed this week.
“In addition to that football field at Cortez, as part of our capital improvement project, we’re looking at a lighting project at Cortez Park and then, of course, the new revamp of the playground over at Cortez Park as well,” said Lerma, who is also the public services director.
“So, really, what you’re seeing happening at Cortez park is a facelift. The football field is just part of a project as a whole and we’re just excited to start with that park and then continuing to move through the rest of our parks.”
Lerma said the funds for the football field will come from the West Covina Foundation fund, not the city’s general fund. She also said there were discussions some months back about the condition of the field.
“You’re looking at years and years of deferred maintenance and now we’re in a position to rectify that,” Lerma said.
Raul Alvarado, deputy director of public services for the city of West Covina, said the field being in poor shape was, in part, because so many people use it.
“It’s not just the Bruins, it’s (pick-up) soccer that plays there, the kids that do workouts — your weekend warriors,” said Alvarado, who began his time with the city in late 2021. “That field is overused. It’s a nice park, so people use it. That’s what it is.”
He, too, is glad the city is stepping in so the experts can get the field up to par.
“I did show up there on a weekend and I saw the guys working on it, the football coaches,” Alvarado said. “It’s not a job for them.
Not to criticize them, but there’s proper equipment to do that job and they didn’t have it.
“There was only three or four of them. It came down to, let’s do the right thing.”
Councilman Tabatabai was glad to be of assistance.
“It’s a big deal,” said Tabatabai, the offensive coordinator for the Charter Oak High varsity football team. “Youth sports, I think it’s really important for young people to be involved in.”
Tabatabai, who was elected in November 2020, said it’s not always easy for local governments to act as quickly as this. This was high priority, he said, and the city had the capacity to assist.
“I mean, we’re talking what, like a week, right?” Tabatabai said. “We got the ball rolling and we had the ability to do something and we did it.”
Ortega couldn’t be happier.
“It’s a big thing,” he said. “Excitement for all of us.”