Coffey Neighborhood Park reopens, at long last, to rave reviews

The park was not supposed to officially open until 10:30 Wednesday morning. But Deo Badaracco didn’t get the memo.

Riding his stunt bicycle around the 5-acre Coffey Neighborhood Park a little after 9 a.m., the 13-year-old noticed workers removing the temporary fencing that had enclosed this beloved public space for years.

After he asked the workers when it might be OK for him to ride in the park, “they told me I could just come on in,” said the grinning Badaracco, who lives on nearby Jenna Place. He and his friend, Bruce Barrett, were soon popping wheelies up and down the pathway parallel to Mocha Lane, resisting the temptation to use the park’s brand new cornhole boards as jumps.

They were soon joined by a trickle, then a steady stream of residents unable to wait until 10:30.

“And that’s OK,” said Brian Bushon, one of many Coffey Park residents who’s worked hard to get the park rebuilt and reopened. “They’ve been waiting for three years.”

The Tubbs fire that incinerated over 1,500 homes in this northwest Santa Rosa neighborhood three years ago also destroyed the park at the heart of the community. Fire tornadoes upended automobiles that came to rest in the park, said Jeff Okrepkie, founder and former president of the neighborhood support group Coffey Strong. Strewn with broken glass, blanketed with contaminants, the park had been closed ever since.

Even as homes in Coffey Park were rebuilt at a brisk rate, he said, the fenced, overgrown park was a glaring reminder “that the job still wasn’t complete.”

Three years, $3.3 million and thousands of collaborative hours of effort from city officials and Coffey Park residents later, the park was once again open for visitors.

“Welcome back, I like your hat,” said Coffey Strong vice president Anne Barbour to a woman in a baseball cap that said “Dog People.”

That woman and her hound were bound for the dog park at the south end of the parcel — bordering Dogwood Drive, fittingly — where perhaps the park’s sole flaw was discovered.

While the play structures functioned beautifully and the 2-plus acres of recently unrolled grass shimmered in the morning sun, a man bearing a plastic bag quite full of canine ordure emerged from the dog park and announced, “There’s no trash can in there.”

While that turf wasn’t laid until late September, the play structures — a colorful melange of swingsets, jungle gyms, a cargo net, a mini climbing wall and a kind of rope bridge — have been ready to go for months, serving to tantalize and torture children in the area, who, in turn, tormented their parents.

“When the grass went in, that’s when it got real,” said Jay Lowder, looking on as his 6-year-old daughter, Riley, hung several feet above the ground from a turtle-shell umbrella. Every evening, Riley insisted on cruising past the park on her bike, to inspect the playground’s progress.

The Damron boys — Daniel is 8, Konrad 7, Malachi 5 — were similarly impatient. The family moved back into their rebuilt house on Mocha a year ago.

“It’s been a long run,” said their father, Josh. Part of the park was scheduled to open early in 2020. But the coronavirus, coupled with additional wildfires, pushed that date back, again and again.

Once the sod was installed, said Josh, “The boys were like, ‘We’re good to go now, right?’

“The last month or so has been the most brutal.”

Asked which part of the park he liked the best, Daniel thought about it, then replied, “Basically the whole thing is the best part.”

Some children dressed up for the occasion. Hadley Nouguier, 6, arrived in a stylish, knee-length black dress. It turned out she was coming from her school’s drive-thru Halloween costume party. Hadley went as Wednesday Addams.

“We have to go,” her mother, Amy, pleaded with her. “We have to get lunch, and I have another meeting.” As her daughter feigned deafness and kept playing, Amy added, “We can come back this afternoon!”

“It’s not like we were angry or upset” by the delays in getting the park reopened, said Forest Badaracco, Deo’s father. “It was just like, Christmas was coming, and now it’s here. And we can’t stop smiling.”

You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at 707-521-5214 or austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88.