Civic Center

Back in 2005, the Santa Monica City Council approved the “Civic Center Specific Plan” which talks about building an athletic field in place of a portion of the surface parking lot. In Feb. 2016, City Council approved moving forward with the designs of the proposed field and then almost a year later a deadline of June 2017 was agreed upon for the city and district to decide if they are going to work together to build the new field and underground parking.The Civic Center Specific Plan also includes the construction of The Early Childhood Lab School, which would provide daycare for about 110 children of city staffers, Research and Development Corporation & SMC employees and others who work in the area and need childcare.The soccer/lacrosse field with a softball overlay would be a valuable new space for many Samo sports teams, youth leagues, adult leagues and club teams. The limited amount of field space that is constantly being fought for causes frequent practice cancellations, forces many Santa Monica residents to have to travel outside of the city, and overall is the cause of numerous different obstacles.“Santa Monica is critically short of park and open recreation space. The National Recreation and Park Association recommends over five acres per each 1,000 residents of a City. Los Angeles enjoys over three acres per 1,000 residents. Santa Monica has only 1.4 acres per 1,000 residents,” Samo PTSA Civic Center Task Force Co-Chairs Jaleh Mirhashemi and Ann Hoover said.With many of the student athletes here at Samohi involved in field sports, it’s difficult to have to make the daily commute to practices while also trying to find the time to finish schoolwork.“Samo students have to travel across town to find practice space, which creates safety issue for students traveling alone or on foot and liability issues for the school and for the district. That travel time also eats into time that otherwise could be spent on homework or rest,” Mirhashemi and Hoover said.It is also hoped that this new field would benefit the girls softball team, whose field was torn down to make the innovation building. They have to travel to memorial park for practices, but with a new field their commute would be cut down to just walking across the street.As to the construction of this field, it will most likely not be built for a couple of years. At the earliest, if the city decides to build a temporary field construction would begin in August of 2018, and a permanent field could possibly begin being built January of 2019. Although the Early Childhood Lab School is supposed to begin construction in the fall of 2017 and be completed in the fall of 2019.Years of work has been put into making this field a reality. Mirhashemi and Hoover alone have done tons of work such as meeting with a variety of people, going to numerous meetings, and coordinating a letter writing campaign.“Making the field a reality at the Civic Center has been a multi-year, ongoing, community-wide effort and we are just two of the many people who are running with the ball at the moment. The community has been waiting over 12 years now for it. It truly is a team effort, because the field is not just for Samo, but for the entire community,” Mirhashemi and Hoover said.