LUCCHESI PARK DEEP HISTORY
A first and exiciting step occurred when the Petaluma National Guard distributed donated fill soil in 1969. The water department was convinced to give up three acres for a soccer field in 1970 and may still have held on to the idea that they could sell or keep parts of the property.
A 1974 bond measure, that would have funded the park, was narrowly defeated. (That year, citizens voted to support a new public library.)
In 1977, grants were sought to finish the grading for the park, but the city persisted in finding ways to install elements, bit by bit. Four lighted tennis courts, four handball courts, and a restroom were added that year.
The following year, a decision was made to modify the master plan. The Oakland firm of Singer and Hodges was placed in charge of the landscape plan, with Delong, Lundburg and Associates of Burlingame as building architects. The plan included a community center, performing arts theater, and indoor sports center. The ball fields, senior center, playgrounds, and a pond for fishing and paddle boats remained in the plan from earlier versions. The city also hired a grants specialist, as funds remained thin. At the same time, the statewide Proposition 13 passed and the promise of future city funds was diminished.
Grant funding must not have been successful, or successful enough. In 1980, the city resorted to an unusual and innovative tactic of asking citizens to fund elements of the park, via the Lucchesi Park Gift Catalog. Donations ranged from $5.50 to buy a duck for the pond, or $40 to buy a tree, to a furnished community building containing a senior center, valued at $1,697,772.
A temporary senior center was built in 1982 and remains in use today. The “lake” didn’t hold water in its earliest iterations but was successfully completed for the grand opening. The lake was stocked with fish, and a concession for boating was anticipated. Ducks and geese had other ideas. They liked the lake so well that they proliferated, water quality suffered, and fishing became, and remains, a difficult question. The boating concession never materialized.
The Boys and Girls Club was added in 1993. The city set aside a part of the park in 1989, and it took some time to fund the project. The indoor pool required expensive repairs to the dehumidifying system and funding fell short. The pool closed around 2001 and remains closed twenty years later.
In spite of budget limitations, Lucchesi Park is a busy and vital center of activity.