A portion of the playground equipment at Independence Park was destroyed by an arsonist in June 2025 and with insurance payment cleared in July the Ceres City Council spent considerable time in deciding how to go about replacing it.
Public Works Superintendent Josh Casas said that the city received an insurance settlement for $131,658 and city staff found a replacement for $134,000 while some estimates came in between $140,000 and $170,000. The lowest bid included the demolition and disposal of the existing playground equipment. Casas said the city would have to come up with a $2,342 difference.
Casas said the options were to go with the low bid; proceed but have city staff do the two to three days of demolition to save $12,000 but cause resources to spread even thinner than they are currently.
The third option – which was the one decided on – is to demolish and remove the existing playground equipment entirely and hold off on immediate replacement while the city’s grant writer, Capitol Advocacy can try to snag California park development grant funds for Independence and Roeding Heights parks. Capitol Advocacy said $200,000 to $8.5 million is available for applicants depending on what improvements are identified.
Casas said a large grant could “allow the city to pursue a much more substantial playground and park improvement than what we could accomplish with the current insurance proceeds alone.”
There are no guarantees of a successful grant application, he stressed, but the grant application is due at year’s end.
Should a grant be successful, the city would like to add to the two parks lighting, restroom, shade structures, splash pads, playground equipment, pickle ball courts, and some exercise equipment.
Councilwoman Cerina Otero expressed a desire to seek out what the community wants in terms of replacing the play structure and adding to the parks.
“I think we should take the option to look at a grant that we might receive because we saw the funding,” said Otero. But she pressed for the immediate fencing off of the burned out structure, calling it a “danger to the community.”
Councilman James Casey said he wanted to see the replacement being bigger than it was before, not smaller.
Mayor Javier Lopez said he reached out to residents in the area and reported that “what I’ve heard from them is, ‘we want our playground back.’”
“Why not just use the insurance money that we have now to repair to replace the playground?” rhetorically asked the mayor. “That way our community members and our kids are no longer waiting without a playground. So if anybody’s ever been to Independence Park, it’s smack in the middle of a lot of apartments. And if you walk around those apartments, I mean, those people are low income. And for them to take their kids out and have the ability to walk that park, which in fact over the years, the Ceres Police Department has cleaned up because of the illegal encampments that I brought to their attention, and I met with community members on the other side of the park. And for that fire to happen, it’s unfortunate, but it’s almost like we took a step back and it wasn’t even our fault. So we continued to try to do everything in our power for our community. And I think that today, the best option is to replace the park with the funding that we have.”
At the end of the long discussion, Mayor Lopez recommended not going with the already secured bid but go out to bid, while continuing discussions with Capital Advocacy as to “whether or not they will be chasing additional funding for the Independence Park.”
Interim City Manager Steve Williams clarified that the consensus of the council seemed to be to have the city tear down the hazardous burned part structure which is now protected by a fence, use the insurance money to put up a replacement for what was damaged, and engage the community in what they desire in the parks as the city pursues the grant for both Independence and Roeding parks.
