12/04/2025
In response to ongoing community discussions regarding the future of Friendship Park:
I call foul! Everyone is thrilled that there is renewed energy for Friendship Park. And we're happy to give Jake Barefoot a lot of credit for being part of this resurgence. There are so many amazing humans in this community that give our time, money and love to keep all that needs to happen rolling. To harness public support by painting another group of dedicated volunteers as non-collaborative and incompetent is not only counter-productive, it is unjust.
Jake has said multiple times that a separate entity is the only way to save Friendship Park and that he will walk away if his Legacy Foundation does not get that contract. Thankfully, he has proven neither are true as he continues to volunteer his time at the park and, more importantly, garner public support for the herculean task that lies in front of us all.
To state the obvious, we are a community center. Yes our prime directive is to run the after school program. And yes we also serve the broader community. Unsurprisingly the needs and wants of the community change over time.
During the pandemic a bunch of people adopted dogs and needed a safe place to socialize them. We worked with them and now there are two dog parks, one for large dogs and one for small. When space was needed for client services beyond what is offered in Fort Bragg, we worked with the Children’s Fund to transform the abandoned theater room into the children’s room. Currently, pétanque players are probably losing their facilities in Fort Bragg so there is desire for another court. We have developed a plan and work on a second court in the abandoned community garden will commence soon.
So when a group of little league parents got a $3,500 grant from the Community Foundation and wanted to work on Friendship park last spring, our entire board comprised of mostly AARP members laid our bodies in front of their lawn mowers so they couldn’t work on the field. Just kidding. We said thank you! And asked some of them to please serve on our board so that Friendship Park stays top of mind.
So where are we really?
The Community Center of Mendocino holds the lease to Friendship Park until June, 2027. That means CCM will remain in charge of scheduling the field. The Mendocino Unified School District remains responsible for the upkeep of the park. The MUSD School Board would have to break its lease with the Community Center in order to contract with another entity. Clearly, both CCM and MUSD support and celebrate any help with rehabbing the park and field.
There are structural issues with the park infrastructure that are not being discussed on social media. Namely, holes in both the dugouts and restrooms, and a roof that is past its expected lifespan. As an existing nonprofit, CCM is in the perfect position to fundraise, organize volunteers and contract services to remedy these problems. As irrigation for the field is at least 18 months out, we choose to focus on the bigger projects during the interim. It doesn’t matter how pretty the grass is if the bleachers cave in.
CCM will hold a community meeting after the holidays to make a global game plan to fix Friendship Park. And we have $20,000 seed money so stay tuned for that! Keep reading to understand why, to date, neither the MUSD School Board nor CCM have contracted with Jake Barefoot’s Legacy Foundation.
In August, Jake Barefoot, acting on behalf of a yet to be formed Legacy Foundation, submitted a proposal to the MUSD school board to lease Friendship Park directly from the district. No action was taken, effectively turning down the proposal. He was told he would have to work with CCM as the current lease holder.
We have begged for one or two of the baseball-centric parents to join our board. We have offered standard facility rental agreements. We have yet to hear a compelling reason for another layer of bureaucracy over Friendship Park. It is possible that the Legacy Foundation will come up with a proposal that we all can live with and that the school board will contract with the them directly in 2027, but that it not currently on the table.
Here is a link to the original proposal to the school board, which starts on page 340
https://www.mendocinousd.org/files/page/3118/8_28_25_web.pdf
Some highlights are:
Rent is $1/year
Friendship Park would be for the sole purpose of year round baseball.
Unattainable fundraising and tournament goals (don’t take our word for it- read the proposal)
The school district remains responsible for the lion’s share of park care and maintenance:
1. Maintenance and repairs of all water systems
2. Major wood/structural maintenance and repairs to snack shack, bleachers, walkways, and dugouts
3. Painting exterior and interior of the building. FPLF will do spot painting only
4. Filling driveways and parking lot with gravel
5. Maintaining the windows and the roof.
6. Maintenance of all fencing (excluding replacement and painting of pickets)
7. Installing, maintaining safe, secure and appropriate well covers
8. Custodial (trash cans and general clean up) after school usage
9. Sprinkler line and head maintenance
10. Paying Friendship Park utility bills
11. Assistance with maintenance of Friendship Park including mowing, weeding, pruning, gopher control, watering, etc.
And Jake gets paid “compensation in line with comparable Mendocino-area nonprofit leadership benchmarks”.
Here’s a link to video of the school board meeting. This is when the larger community began having concerns about access to Friendship Park. Agenda item starts at 2:01, Passcode: 4D3U6@a9
https://www.mendocinousd.org/District/3120-2025-26-Videos.html
In October, a meeting was held with the MUSD Superintendent and Facilities Committee, CCM, the Legacy Foundation and several little league parents. We thought we were there to talk about Friendship Park. Jake and Paul thought we were there to talk about the Legacy Foundation. Nothing was accomplished.
At the end of the meeting, Jake handed out his proposed lease agreement between the Legacy Foundation and the Community Center of Mendocino. Why he didn’t lead with this w don’t know, but we took it back to the November CCM board meeting for discussion. Sorry we don’t have a digital copy but Jake has posted his proposal in a prior post.
This version restricts access to Friendship Park and lays the groundwork for denying rental of the park to Flynn Creek Circus. As a community center, we cannot enter into an agreement that shuts down people’s ability to utilize our shared facilities.
There were also some items in the proposal that made it seem fruitless to continue working with the Legacy Foundation as a possible subcontractor of the park. Most notably, the school district remained responsible for maintenance and infrastructure of Friendship Park. As we all know, the district simply does not have the funds to do this. The Legacy Foundation would have all control of park scheduling, enjoy the rental income and still have no obligation to care for the park beyond superficial upkeep.
And instead of a standard arbitration agreement, there is language giving him the right to sue if we interfere with his program.
Currently, Jake is very adeptly spinning a story that places blame of the park's condition on CCM and MUSD. Drink that Kool-Aid if you want; the truth is that until now, there just hasn't been the community will to do anything about it. The condition of Friendship Park is nobody's fault and everyone's problem to solve.
As a community center, it is not our goal to control; it is our goal to facilitate the public’s enjoyment of our community spaces. As proven throughout the campus, when we are presented with a plan that gets a job done better than we can do it, we augment and support that plan. With all this building enthusiasm, we hope that such a plan develops around Friendship Park.
The Community Center will continue to advocate for access to all our facilities. We will continue to fundraise for Friendship Park and support volunteer efforts for its usage and upkeep. We will continue to listen to the community and respond to its needs, including more baseball. Going forward, we hope we can leave the topics of control and blame behind us because we want to work with the Jake that is out there in the mud fixing the sprinkler system and igniting the community to action.
