Watchwords for White Point Park

This letter is in response to your article, “Playground or Preserve?” (Times, Sept, 27), which contained, being charitable, some inaccuracies concerning White Point Park.

First, a definition: “park, n. 1. an area of land, usually in a natural state, for the enjoyment of the public, having facilities for rest and recreation, usually owned, set apart, and managed by a city, state, or nation.” Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged Edition, Page 1,049.

White Point Park meets and has met this definition since 1976. It is true that vehicular access is restricted, as any natural area is vulnerable to vehicular abuse, but the park is not closed to pedestrian traffic, and is in fact used by joggers, bird watchers, dog walkers and others who appreciate its unique qualities.

Neither is it vacant. Not to mention the foxes, owls, hawks, doves, crows, ravens, rabbits, meadowlarks and the rest of the flora and fauna there, it is also home to the White Point Community Garden, which clearly shows in your photograph as the large “U-shaped facility adjacent to the Nike missile battery.”

Those of you familiar with the International Code of Signals and the Bible may find it at least interesting to peruse Isaiah 2 and Micah 4. Also, Isaiah 5:8: “Woe be unto them, who build house against house, and lay field against field, and leave no place where a man may be set down alone in the midst of the earth.” White Point Park, as it currently is, is just such a place, and may be the last such place for miles around. To develop it would be to destroy it, and maybe all of us along with it. “Woe” can mean anything up to and including World War III.

Handle with care.

DR. PAUL L. HINTON

President, White Point

Community Garden Assn.

San Pedro