Photos courtesy of the City of Port Hueneme

Port Hueneme—Before its August recess, the City Council received an update on the Bubbling Springs Park project and enjoyed projected visualizations of the finished park.

Presenting the update, Director of Housing and Facilities Gabby Basua said the budget is $11.486 million, of which $3.3 million has already been completed. The project has a backstop of $1.111 million.

“We spent $33,000 (in emergency funds) from that account,” she said.

Demolition and grading work in the park has been completed, she said, and the building foundations are in place.

“The installation of the CMU (walls and brick walls) is underway and the irrigation and power are 90 percent complete,” she said. “The installation of our walkway has begun; it is at the south end of the park, so you will see construction starting at the community center.”

She said work at Southern California Gas has been challenging, but the utilities are about 80 percent complete.

“Right now we’re still on track, but that can change at any time,” Basua said. “If that happens, we’ll make sure our city manager (James Vega) lets you know. Right now we’re anticipating opening the park at the end of March.”

She said there have been challenges along the way, with groundwater being the biggest problem.

“We’ve had a lot of rain this year and we expected groundwater in this area,” she said. “We knew it was going to be tough, and we’ve known that for a long time. It’s been challenging, but we’re making progress.”

She said laying the transit water line was a challenge and when they broke ground, they found a lot of transit lines.

“That’s where the $33,000 came in,” she said. “We had to pay for the removal. It was removed safely, but that was a cost we didn’t anticipate. When we opened the floor, we didn’t realize we were going to hit a transit line.”

She said Southern California Edison has been a problem and the city had to install three new meters to bring all the amenities to the park.

“We’ve been successful and are close to getting two of them powered,” she said. “We’re still having trouble getting power to one of them, next to the dog park.”

She said exciting things are happening at Ball Field 1 as demolition and rough leveling are completed.

“Irrigation and underground electricity are underway,” Basua said. “I am happy that these lights are coming to the neighborhood so our children can play at night.”

She said stadium lighting, foundations and reinforcement work are continuing at Ball Field 2 and underground electrical service will begin soon. Ball Field 3 is almost the same.

“Ball Field 4, the T-Ball Field, and to save some money, we decided early on that we wanted to keep the fence,” she said. “We tried to do that to save some money. Now that we’ve started construction, we look at it and it doesn’t look so nice anymore, and I’ve asked to get a quote to replace it.”

She said demolition work in picnic areas has been completed and removals have been completed, and irrigation and electricity supplies are at 90 percent.

“Dog park leveling is complete, and underground irrigation and power are 100 percent complete,” she said. “Soccer field leveling is complete, and irrigation and power are 90 percent complete. Foundations for stadium lighting and rebar installation are continuing.”

She said leveling work on the toilets and concession stand has been completed, underground utilities are about 80 percent complete and CMU walls are being erected.

“The Department of Public Works is probably very happy with the trash fencing that they need for this park,” she said. “Currently, the shade structures are being constructed. Once we have those, we will proceed with construction.”

Council member Laura Hernandez is pleased with the park’s progress.

“It’s exciting to see this,” she said.

Gama thanks the city team for their excellent work.

“This is a huge project, the biggest project we’ve ever done,” he said. “We can’t remember the last time we did a project this big.”