House prices holding in North Long Beach
House prices holding in North Long Beach
Community News and Resources
Creating Willow Springs Park
A different way of thinking
about public space
$4M Investment Fuels Next
Phase of Willow Springs Park
Once dominated by oil wells, the site is evolving into a rare urban wetland and community space shaped by years of advocacy and ongoing restoration efforts
By Chelsea Sektnan
Willow Springs Park in Long Beach doesn’t look like a typical city park, and that’s exactly the point.
Trails wind through the site past wetlands, oil derricks, and native plants, at times running alongside active industrial uses. On one side, the park borders Sunnyside Cemetery and Long Beach Municipal Cemetery. On the other edge of the property, it borders the aerospace company Vast Space and other industrial uses. Much of the site remains undeveloped or still reflects its industrial past.
“We’re trying to preserve the park in a natural state… as opposed to a regular park with baseball fields,” said Mauna Eichner, co-chair of Friends of Willow Springs Park (FOWSP). “We don’t need another manicured park. We need something that reflects what this land actually is.”
That vision is now shaping a new phase of investment in the site.
Los Angeles County recently awarded $4 million in Measure A funds to support the Willow Springs Park Trailhead Project, which could include reimagining a historic train depot that burned down in 2016, as well as expanded parking
and basic amenities.
“I’d like to see that train station reconstructed,” Lee Fukui, co-chair of FOWSP, said. “We have the plans for it… I’d like to see something from the past recreated there for visitors to see it, and make it a destination.”
The depot, a historic structure relocated to the site years ago, was destroyed in a 2016 fire, leaving a visible gap at what is one of the park’s entrances.
LA County Supervisor Janice Hahn, whose office helped oversee the Measure A funding allocation, framed the investment as part of a broader effort to expand access to open space in underserved communities.
“We live in one of the most beautiful natural environments on Earth, but for too many families-especially in our urban communities- getting out into nature is still frustratingly out of reach,” said Hahn in a statement. “That’s where our local parks come in. They are that missing link.”
For Hahn, the investment is about access. For people who have spent years working on the site, it’s something else, too-momentum.
“This is really the last natural open space where it is native vegetation,” said Long Beach District 5 Councilwoman Megan Kerr. “It really is about restoration to natural space.”
How much it would cost to restore the entire park site hasn’t been determined.
Kerr said the site’s history makes that work especially significant.
To understand what Willow Springs is now, you have to understand what it was, and what it almost became. Long before the trails, the wetlands, or the beehives, this land was something else entirely.
“It was supposed to be a grand park,”
Eichner said.
“That idea has been around for a long time.”
In the early 20th century, Long Beach leaders proposed transforming the area into a large public park with recreational amenities. Those plans never materialized, as the discovery of oil soon reshaped the landscape.
Aerial view of Farm Lot 59 at Willow Springs Park, where urban agriculture operates alongside restoration areas.
Volunteers from Friends of Willow Springs Park walk along a trail during their monthly meeting and hike.
Larry Rich, sustainability manager and the Office of Climate Action & Sustainability’s liaison to FOWSP, points out features of Willow Springs Park during
a community tour of the site.
Larry Rich, sustainability manager
and the Office of Climate Action & Sustainability’s liaison to FOWSP, speaks to volunteers during a tour
of Willow Springs Park.
“It’s come a long way,” he said. “What we’re doing here is creating community.”
But the timing was off. In 1921, oil was discovered on Signal Hill. Within a matter of months, the landscape shifted. Open land gave way to drilling rigs. By 1923, the area had become one of the most productive oil fields in the world.
The park plans were quietly dropped. For decades, the land remained industrial-dense with oil derricks, shaped by extraction, and largely inaccessible
to the public.
“I used to drill oil here when I was 19,” said Mike Pack, a member of FOWSP and an environmental advocate. “Back then, this whole area was completely different.”
During an April Friends of Willow Springs Park meeting hike, birds and insects could be heard throughout the site, along with the steady sound of airplanes overhead, as Pack paused and looked out across the trails and
low-lying vegetation.
The shift away from industry didn’t happen all at once.
Planning for a park resumed in the mid-2000s, with early restoration efforts taking shape. The first section opened in 2012. A larger wetlands restoration project followed in 2017, reintroducing native plants and rebuilding parts of the ecosystem that had long been buried or disrupted.
“That’s what this park is all about,” said Fukui. “It was founded on a natural spring.”
That spring, once part of a broader system that helped define early Long Beach, has been reimagined here through constructed water features and bioswales designed to capture and filter runoff.
Plenty of room to watch the England-France game at Houghton Park on Saturday
No waiting at the portable toilets Saturday at Houghton Park for viewing of the third-place World Cup game between England and France. About 50 people were gathered under trees off to the right side and farther back from the screen. England won before 65,326 in Miami where the temperature was 90 degrees.
6301 Myrtle Ave, Long Beach, ca 90805
Voting day closes
in North Long Beach
Sepehr Eftekharian and Allan Chacon, county leads for the voting center at New Philadelphia AME church on Orange Avenue in North Long Beach, formally close the polls -- as they are directed by law to do.
Harmony is not required but the two were inspired Monday evening.
Voting was a secure experience in North Long Beach.
Voting centers in North Long Beach sometimes were lonely places during the four-day May-June voting period -- but the process was secure.
A reporter took the 8-hour online and 3-hour in-class Los Angeles County polling center staff classes, much of which covered the multiple layers of protection that guard the voting integrity. He then was assigned to the North Long Beach voting center at New Philadelphia AME church on Orange Avenue at 64th street.
Can someone vote illegally, as many have alleged in recent years ?
It's tough to imagine how at Los Angeles County voting centers, where clerks verify that voters are properly registered and cross-checks, coded zip ties, scans and other security procedures then guard the ballots until they are packed and taken to centers
for further checks.
Mohamed Dwaik, a field service technician, patrolled the New Philadelphia voting center all day for the four voting days, monitoring and checking the 15 voting machines at the church Hall, which had been transformed into one of the approximately 650 voting centers in Los Angeles County.
County staffers above the New Philadelphia voting center leads Allan Chacon and Sepehr Eftekharian came frequently to inspect, check and consult.
Some challenges were unexpected.
Someone, a voter perhaps, apparently ran over one of the plastic orange cones marking the handicapped voter parking in front of Butler Hall on Orange Avenue and then drove off with the cone lodged in the undercarriage of the car. The voting center had no spares cones to marke handiapped parking so Chacon went looking for ithe wayward one, finding it later about a mile away on the side of Artesia Boulevard, smudged from being dragged on the road but still serviceable. He brought it back and returned it to duty.
For some, voting clearly was a social activity. They met friends, chatted with voting staff and handed their phones to a voting center greeter to have their pictures taken in front of the center.
In all, about 500 people voted at the Orange Avenue center, either using the electronic voting stations -- each costing about $4,000 -- or deposited their completed ballots in a sealed collection bin. By far, the majority of voters came in the later afternoon and early evening hours Tuesday, three barely making it before the center closed.
Jeff Rowe/for Long Beach Vibe, jfrowe@rocketmail.com
Oil wells remain scattered across and around the property, with more than a dozen still visible and 11 still in production; others are idle and operated by companies such as Signal Hill Petroleum, a reminder of the site’s industrial past.
“There’s so much urban industrial landscape, but you can see the potential,” said Donald Specker, a member of FOWSP who joined a recent walk through the park.
That tension between what was and what could be is everywhere. Walk farther into Willow Springs, and the usual markers of a city park fall away.
No soccer fields or play structures compete for space. Instead, the landscape opens up, crisscrossed by trails that weave through habitat and restoration areas. A large mulch pile maintained by the Long Beach Community Compost Organization sits within view of a roughly four-acre concrete recycling site operated by Martin Marietta Materials, a holdover from when the land was zoned for industry. The facility, which has been there since at least the 1980s, still crushes old concrete into road base for reuse. It remains for now, generating revenue for the city, even as long-term plans call for its eventual phase-out. Nearby, a constructed spring has been folded into the terrain, part of the park’s gradual ecological restoration.
Along one stretch of trail, a mural and signage tell the story of the Gabrielino/Tongva people, the original inhabitants of the region.
“People think this land was empty before,”
Fukui said. “It wasn’t.”
For some, Willow Springs has taken on another role: a place to teach.
“It’s very much like a classroom outdoors,” said Jennifer Duke, communications director for the Long Beach Beekeepers. That classroom extends to the Willow Springs Bee Sanctuary, located within the park, where rescued honey bee colonies are relocated and cared for. “I have about 150 hives… in the backyards of over 60 homes,” said beekeeper Gabriel Salinas. “But this is the only place I know of where rescued bees can be brought and where people can come learn. ”Salinas and the club use the site as part of a broader network of bee rescue and education. “The city said, ‘We have this little piece of property… and you can keep bees,’” he said. “So we did.”
Salinas died suddenly from complications of diabetes while speaking about the hives.
Read more about him below.
The sanctuary also serves as a training ground for new beekeepers.
“We do about 53 classes a year,” said Jacob Dickinson, president of the Long Beach Beekeepers. “People come out here, and they start to understand what’s happening. ”For volunteers, the mission is both practical and educational.“It’s like a dog rescue,” said Jamie Guoz, former president of the Long Beach Beekeepers. But for bees. “They just need a place to go.”
In another part of the park, a similar effort is underway. Farm Lot 59, located on the southwest edge of the park, grows organic produce and offers classes on urban gardening and sustainability. The nonprofit was founded in 2010 by Sasha Kanno and is part of a broader effort to reconnect Long Beach residents with food production. The site also distributes food and flowers to community members and hosts workshops focused on soil health, composting, and native planting.
Even with new funding, Willow Springs is not a finished project. The site faces ongoing challenges, including access and infrastructure limitations, parking constraints, and concerns about overnight RV use in the surrounding areas, and on some sections of the property.
Of the roughly 48 acres owned by the city, only about 15 are currently accessible. The rest remains in various stages of planning or restoration. The trailhead project is expected to cost about $5 million, including $4 million in the Measure A funds.
“Public Works is taking the lead on redesigning the plans to better fit how that area is used now,” said Larry Rich, sustainability manager and the Office of Climate Action & Sustainability’s liaison to FOWSP. “There’s a need for a larger capacity parking lot, and a strong interest in incorporating a bathroom into it.”
Near the east side of the park, the landscape shifts again. A large mound of mulch sits among native plantings, including California sun cups, a coastal wildflower recently added by volunteers as part of ongoing restoration efforts, and narrow-leaf native milkweed, planted during a recent monarch butterfly education day to support monarch populations.
A short distance away, Vast Space, an aerospace company developing commercial space station technology, operates facilities near the northeast side
of the property.
“We’re trying to preserve the park in a natural state… while also providing facilities like restrooms and a visitor center,” said Rashid Ocheltree, a volunteer for FOWSP who helps maintain hiking trails throughout the site. “[We’re] keeping the park more natural as opposed to a regular park with baseball fields or soccer fields.”
Less than half of the 40-acre site has been developed so far, he said.
Eichner said the long-term goal is to continue restoring the land while keeping its natural character.
“We’re trying to preserve the park in a natural state,” said Eichner. “That’s the goal.”
Native plants grow near an active oil pump at Willow Springs Park, reflecting the site’s industrial past and ecological restoration.
Larry Rich, the city's sustainability manager, points to an area of Willow Springs Park where habitat work is ongoing.
A group stands near a vernal spring near Vast, a seasonal wetland that forms during wetter months, at Willow Springs Park.
“We’re trying to preserve the park in a natural state,” said Eichner. “That’s the goal.”
Friends of Willow Springs Park volunteers walk along a trail during the monthly FOWSP meeting.
Native plants grow near an active oil derrick at Willow Springs Park, reflecting the site’s industrial past and ecological restoration.
Willow Springs Park in Long Beach features restored wetlands, native habitat, and active restoration areas across the site.
Willow Springs beekeeper Gabriel Salinas dies
December 16, 1980 - April 11, 2026
Gabriel “Gabe” Salinas, 45, of Long Beach, died suddenly from complications of diabetes on April 11, 2026, while volunteering at the Willow Springs Park apiary, where he was an active member of the Long Beach Beekeepers.
In recent years, he became deeply involved in beekeeping, serving as sanctuary manager at Willow Springs Park. He was committed to maintaining the apiary, supporting educational programs, and assisting fellow beekeepers.
Above all, Salinas was a devoted father. He is remembered for his unwavering support of his daughters and for building his life around their activities and interests.
Salinas leaves his daughters, Madelene Salinas and Abigail Salinas, both of Cerritos; his father, Rodolfo Salinas Sr. of Long Beach; his mother, Enriqueta Salinas of Long Beach; and his brothers, Rodolfo Salinas Jr. of Long Beach, Cesar Salinas of Long Beach, and Eddie Salinas of Fontana.
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