
We Want To Save Friendship Park as a Real Ballfield
Friendship Park was built as a Little League ballfield and community hub. Today, it is being used for unrelated events that are not funding the maintenance of the park, while the field itself falls into neglect. We are asking the School Board to act before another season is lost.
Why Friendship Park Matters
Friendship Park is not just another patch of grass. It was built by community volunteers as a dedicated Tournament Level Little League ballfield and gathering place for Mendocino families. Generations of kids have learned teamwork, confidence, and resilience on that field. Many of the people working to save it today grew up playing there and now want their own children and grandchildren to experience the same sense of community.
What Is Going Wrong
Under the current arrangement, Friendship Park is being treated as a general event space to be rented out by CCM to help fund their after school program instead of being used as a purpose-built ballfield. The field has been used heavily for revenue-generating activities that have nothing to do with youth baseball, while basic field maintenance has been neglected. The result is a park that is no longer in safe, game-ready condition for Little League Tournaments.
What We Are Asking the School Board To Do
The School Board holds the master lease and has the power to fix this. We are asking the Board to:
Place Friendship Park on a public agenda for full discussion.
Enforce or amend the lease so the park is restored and maintained as a ballfield.
Establish a structure that allows the Friendship Park Legacy Foundation to take the lead on field maintenance and baseball use, so that CCM can focus on their much needed after school programs, with clear boundaries so everyone knows their role.
We've tried to work with CCM and have proposed a sublease agreement that would allow them to still keep throwing the circus there and keep all the money from that event so their net loss from the change in the lease was essentially zero. They denied our agreement and now we are appealing to the schoolboard to fix this situation.
How You Can Help
The most powerful thing you can do is put your experience and opinion on the record. Use the form below to share your connection to Friendship Park, our team will take your inputs and put them into formal letter format. We'll email it to you with simple instructions for how to email testimony into the School Board and, if you wish, information to come speak at a meeting.


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