CITY WORKS IN PROGRESS LANCASTER PLANS 60-ACRE REGIONAL PARK.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Lancaster will see more jobs, the start of work on a water recycling plan, and the beginning of the development of a new park next year, the mayor says.

With construction moving forward on a Countrywide mortgage loan center that will employ 500 people, Lancaster officials will continue to focus on attracting more commercial and industrial companies like the Rite Aid and Michaels distribution centers, Mayor Frank Roberts said.

``We have two or three like those waiting to come onboard. What stalled that somewhat was 9-11,'' Roberts said in an interview last week. ``We hope that we will continue to take people off the highway and keep them working in Lancaster. That will be our main mission.''

City officials also expect to start construction of Whit Carter Park, a proposed 60-acre regional park on Sierra Highway near Avenue H-8.

Plans for the park, expected to cost about $4.8 million, include two baseball fields, general purpose athletic fields, picnic areas, a children's play area, and a 1,500-square-foot office, play room and storage building.

Valley pioneer Whit Carter's home, donated by his family, will be turned into a community center.

The park is also to include the Antelope Valley's first dog park, in which dogs would be allowed to run without leashes. Details remain to be worked out, but city officials said the dog park portion would likely cover about two acres that would be fenced off from the rest of the park. The development of the park is expected to take several years.

The mayor said another priority will be to work with Los Angeles County officials to start a program for using treated sewage to irrigate landscaping on street medians and around freeway on- and off-ramps. The county has a $5.6 million grant to develop a five-year project.

``If we have the 1.2 million people (in the Antelope Valley) that SCAG (Southern California Association of Governments) is predicting by 2020, then we are going to have to recycle,'' Roberts said.

Lancaster will also continue to invest in clandestine sheriff's operations like Operation Silent Thunder, last year's wiretap and surveillance operation aimed at dismantling methamphetamine manufacturing operations, and the two Men in Black sting operations in previous years that targeted thieves and drug dealers.

Those three operations resulted in the arrests of more than 500 people.

Roberts said he also wants to see progress made on the north downtown transit village plan, a redevelopment project aimed at improving the neighborhood generally bounded by Avenue I, the railroad tracks, Kettering Street and Fern Avenue.

The centerpiece of the plan is a proposed municipal park coupled with expanded campuses of Desert Christian School and Sacred Heart Catholic Church, which also operates a school. Details of the park are subject to change as the plan develops, but a concept map shows the park covering about 10 to 12 acres and having two baseball fields, two soccer fields and four basketball courts.

The plan also envisions helping social-service agencies whose offices are on or near Sierra Highway. The corridor would include the Salvation Army Church, St. Vincent de Paul church, the Mental Health Association and the Grace Resources Center food bank.

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