ONTARIO – The Ontario City Council approved a move to buy Moore Park from former mayor Riley Hill at is Sept. 12 meeting.
The council voted unanimously to pay Hill $250,000 for the park on South Oregon Street.
Hill has owned the park since the early 1990s and has leased it to the city for $1 a year since then.
“We’ve been working on it for a long time. Negotiations took quite a while,” said Dan Cummings, Ontario city manager.
Cummings said the deal is important because of future plans for revitalizing downtown.
“The council determined not to spend any more money on it until we owned it,” said Cummings.
An appraisal completed on the half-acre park valued it at $270,000.
The money for the purchase will come from a “mixed pot,” said Cummings.
Some of the cash is money already earmarked for the downtown revitalization effort and some of it derives from a $650,000 sale of city property two years ago, he said.
“But it was all assigned for the downtown improvement project,” said Cummings.
Cummings said the city will close on the deal soon.
Councilor Eddie Melendrez said he is pleased with the purchase.
“Over the last two years I’ve had some concerns about investing any money without owning the park. I am grateful we are able to go forward,” he said.
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