Isla Vista Recreation & Park District History
To:
The Board of Directors, Isla Vista Recreation and
Park District
From:
Christina A. Ziegler-McPherson, Chair, History Committee
I
submit to you my history of the Isla Vista Recreation and Park
District from 1972 to the present. I would like to thank the Board
for its support and assistance. I would also like to thank the
district staff, especially General Manager Derek Johnson, district
secretaries Enid Osborn, Keely Burke and Mandy Bjorklund, grounds
manager Brenton Kelly, bookkeeper Jeff Yolles, and recreation
coordinator Anne Aziz, who regularly had to suffer being bumped from
her desk while I was doing archival research in the office. The 'groundscrew'
as they at least used to be called, could also always be counted
upon for a good laugh, which I regularly appreciated. I could not
have written this study with their help and patience. In addition, I
would like to thank my assistant, Becky Brown, for her work on this
study. Without her help, this report would be at least another month
coming.
I would
also like to thank all the Isla Vistans, past and present, who spent
time talking with me about their experiences in I.V. and with the
Park District.
Most
historians have an indirect relationship with the people and places,
events and processes they study; the people are frequently long
dead; the places are dramatically changed, if still in existence;
the events and processes occurred long ago. They work primarily with
documents, old wonderfully musty smelling pieces of paper. For me
however, studying and writing about Isla Vista was different. I
lived for the past eleven years until a few months ago all my adult
life in Isla Vista or as close by as a 15-minute bike ride from
Ellwood Beach or across El Colegio Road from UCSB's Family Student
Housing on Los Carneros. Isla Vista is a real place to me, full of
powerful memories. I can walk through its streets, parks and open
spaces and point out places that have special meaning to me. 'That's
where so-and-so lived,' 'I went to a crazy party there,' 'here's
where such-and-such happened.' There is my first apartment on El
Greco; the place on Cordoba where my husband first kissed me, the
run-down house on Sabado Tarde where we got engaged. In writing this
history of the Park District and Isla Vista I have had to grapple
with the evidence I have found in documents as well as my own
memories and experiences and those of long-time residents involved
with the District and the community.
In
working on this history I found that it changed my perception and my
understanding of, and my relationship with, Isla Vista. Because of
the physical layout of the UCSB campus and of Isla Vista, it was
very easy to walk or bicycle from my old apartment to school without
ever setting foot in I.V. But throughout the spring and summer while
working on this project, I found myself spending a lot more time in
Isla Vista, most of it, of course, at the District office on
Embarcadero del Mar. Since moving at the end of August I have had
the interesting experience of living day in, day out with Isla Vista
in my mind while trying to adapt to life in the San Francisco Bay
Area.
I have
written this study with the intention of providing a fair and
objective study of the relationship between the Park District and
the community of Isla Vista, gathering and analyzing the evidence
and providing my conclusions. You might not agree with all of my
assessments, that it be expected. I do however hope that you enjoy
reading the study. I know I enjoyed researching and writing it.
Sincerely,
Christina
A. Ziegler-McPherson,
mailto:chris@maczieg.com
Ph.D.
candidate, UC Santa Barbara,
Isla
Vista/Goleta and now Palo Alto, CA,
October
27, 1998.
The views expressed do not necessarily
reflect those views of the District, Board of Directors, or
District Staff. The publishing of this work on the web
is meant to offer one viewpoint of the history of the
District.
To view these files, Adobe Acrobat Reader is needed.
Go here to download:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
|
