This comes from the City of San José Department of Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services (PRNS) website:
Doing Our Part to Conserve
With California facing the most severe drought in history, and residents being asked to reduce usage by 30%, the City of San José takes its responsibility to conserve water seriously. PRNS is dedicated to maintaining our facilities in a way that both conserves water and preserves our parks. Although public parks are exempt from the watering restrictions, we plan to reduce our potable (fresh) water usage while keeping areas of our parks green, to provide our residents a respite from the drought conditions and a safe environment to recreate.
For the rest of the statement click here.
MARTIN-FONTANA PARKS ASSOCIATION 
Posted by Patrick Pizzo on June 15, 2015 at 9:47 am
First, let me premise this comment as representing only me, and not an official comment as a working member of MFPA. The photo says it all! The conditions of our parks are at odds with this official PRNS Statement. In my opinion, as MFPA has put more and more effort and enthusiasm into the parks (Martin and Fontana), the City has backed-off in support. In 2010, the weed situation was not what it is today; we had a ground squirrel and gopher problem; but it was tractable. We had turf! A 20% reduction in water use (the previous target) cannot in itself account for the miserable turf condition in our parks!
The statement declares “Continuing to irrigate and maintain our parks will prevent the
decay of existing landscaping, saving tax payers millions of dollars in restoration costs.” Too late! A complete turf restoration is necessary, certainly for Fontana West; and without a new irrigation system, there would be no point to restore the turf. PRNS has let turf conditions Without effective rodent control, and I don’t mean an owl-box or two in the GOGP, restoration would be a waste of money!
Residents are fortunate to have a group of people, MFPA, advocate for their parks. Trees have been planted/replaced and dead trees removed. Benches re-conditioned. Play animals added to the tot lots. Many workdays have been organized to spread wood chips and to remove weeds and to clean the parks. Residents have recognized this through contribution to the MFPA organization. But that is not enough. Residents must take a pro-active role is seeing that their parks, their home equity is maintained or improved.
The quality of life represented by these parks has decayed. Without your personal advocacy and direct involvement and support, conditions will not improve. So, PRNS has set out their ‘policy’ by this statement. Are you satisfied that your parks represent the conditions outlined in the statement? If so, you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!
pppizzo
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Posted by Wilson Linda on June 15, 2015 at 3:47 pm
This letter reflects the truth of our parks. It will take public comment to bring about a change.
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Posted by dstvns on June 22, 2015 at 5:43 pm
Spot-on, Pat. Meanwhile, PRNS is moving full speed ahead building new parks in North San Jose. If PRNS had put a moratorium on new parks until the drought situation improves, it would sent a msg they are serious about dealing with the problem. Instead we have new plantings in these new parks that will require even more water the first couple years until they get established. In the meantime, existing parks have to struggle with meager water supplies and lousy looking parks. To quote a famous queen, their attitude sounds a lot like “let them eat cake”….. Dick Stevens
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Posted by Scott Raley on August 27, 2015 at 6:17 pm
I commented yesterday on this issue but will chime in here as well. 100% agee that the city parks and recreation have basically throw in the town on keeping turf areas watered. The drought has given them an escuse for providing worse service and pathetic maintenance to areas that need baseline watering to keep living what has been alrerady been planted.How many more years will we now wait for the Fontana Parks to have property irrigation and have these field of weeds replanted with new grass?
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