City dumping at Natividad Creek Park

A local park has become what residents are calling ‘an eyesore’.

For the past 4 or 5 months, the city has been dumping piles of mulch in Natividad Creek Park in Salinas.The park has a lot going for it including: disk golf courses, walking paths, and beautiful landscapes.

A nearby resident of the park, Matt Wall, says, “The city goes through and in the spring they should be starting right now… trimming up all of the trails and everything that the city owns I suppose. And they’ll be cutting everything back and when they do that they mulch it and they need a place to put it…. So this is where they are putting it.”

According to Wall, the city leaves piles of mulch in the park and only comes to spread it out every so often. Wall says that the mulch is an “eyesore” which takes away from the beauty of the park.

“I’m upset about it you know… this is a beautiful park here. And I walk out here with my dog a couple of time a day, and I ride my bike through here, and I enjoy coming out here and I really don’t like what they are doing with it.” – Wall

Wall isn’t just standing still. He is making his voice heard having recently talked to members of the city.
He also reached out to the director of public works through email. He received a response reading, “You are not alone, as several others have complained.” The email goes on the say that the city used to store the chips at a second location in Elvee Park… which is currently under construction. Once the road construction is completed, they plan to shift all of the chips to that one location. He concluded saying, “We will try to minimize the impact and manage the piles better.”