OPUD green-lights two more Wheeler Ranch parks

The last two parks in Wheeler Ranch are nearing their own groundbreaking, and will bear the names of two prominent Yuba County residents.

Friday, the Olivehurst Public Utility District board of directors gave the go-ahead to a firm to begin work on the 1.35-acre JoAnne Aiello park, and the district board is set to vote on a construction bid later this month for the 5-acre Richard "Doug" Donahue Park.

Weather permitting, both Plumas Lake parks should be completed by the end of the year, said OPUD General Manager Tim Shaw.

"It's going to be a little bit of a challenge with the last one," Shaw said, because of its larger size and its later start than two others. "If we get any sort of hiccups with construction, we could be just mostly done when the weather turns."

Work should begin within weeks for JoAnne Aiello Park, named for a longtime county resident who was instrumental in establishing Head Start programs in Yuba County.

A kindergarten teacher, Aiello founded the Children's Home Society of California's Child Care Resource and Referral Program for Yuba and Sutter counties in 1980, then became program director for Yuba Sutter Head Start in 1991.

The site is now known as E Center Head Start. Aiello died in March, and a memorial grant was established in her name. The park will be on Links Parkway, near the middle of the Wheeler Ranch subdivision.

Donahue was a former OPUD trustee as well as a longtime Little League volunteer, Shaw said.

The park bearing Donahue's name will be the biggest in the neighborhood, with baseball and soccer fields as well as picnic areas, Shaw said.

Parks cost about $200,000 an acre to build, Shaw said, but the amount varies with the size of the park because smaller parks have relatively more features in a smaller area.

Work began earlier this year on the neighborhood's first park, Leila Smith Memorial. Wheeler Ranch residents endured a wait of years for parks to be built after a dispute between trustees for the bankrupt subdivision's builder and the utility district.

CONTACT Ben van der Meer at 749-4709 or bvandermeer@appealdemocrat.com.