You know, thank you for coming out here dedicating your lives and your services uh to help make our community a better place.

And of course, you know, the mayor mentioned Bob Ilko.

I should mention Mark Sorensen, but we have so many great community volunteers.

You know, I've worked with Gordon for um 25 years, Wally, Sandy.

Um, and we got really close during the fires.

You know, you it was mentioned to come back to Scripps Ranch, what that's like, but it to me it always comes back to the fires, and we think about and we think about how this community came together during that time.

Um it's a remarkable community with remarkable community leaders.

None of this stuff would happen uh without them.

And so thanks to their persistence, we'll be able to bring some really long-awaited necessary improvements to the park.

Uh and adults, children, uh, individuals with disabilities will all be able to enjoy this great space to its fullest.

Um and and if you think about what these parts, you know, especially for community like Scripps Ranch, what it means.

We really use these.

If you come here on a weekend, you will see it's little kids' soccer games, little kids softball games, all the way up to the old pros or or uh more adult leagues.

Everybody in the community uses these parks.

Um and so finally we're also gonna have increased storage areas.

I know the city staff will like that, so our grounds crew can help easily maintain the park.

Uh we'll be installing CCTV to make sure that our investment uh it's it's a lot of it's a lot of money that we're putting into this, and we want to make sure that our investment is protected.

So, with that, uh I want to thank everyone.

I want to thank the mayor for his great partnership.

It's easy to get him to come up here, and that hasn't always been the case with past mayors who haven't seemed to find their way north enough.

And uh our mayor, Todd Gloria does.

I want to thank uh councilmember Von Wilpert, the city staff, the great community leaders, and thank you all for taking time to come out here to our park this morning to witness what we're doing here.

So thank you all very much.

And I guess it's my pleasure uh to introduce our Scripps Ranch Planning Group chair, Victoria Labruzzo.

Victoria has put in countless hours.

Um she's always had big shoes to fill because we've always had great leaders here in the community, and she's filled them very ably.

So it's my pleasure to introduce Victoria.

Thank you very much, Brian.

Appreciate that.

Um yes, big shoes.

Uh I've been doing this for about two years.

So uh I uh this is really should should be Bob Ilko right now speaking, but as they said, he couldn't join us.

So I'm filling his shoes, and a lot of the information I'm gonna be giving to you today is based off of Bob's comments.

So um that's this is really Bob speaking through me.

So um again, I'm Victoria Labruzzo, I'm the chair of the Scripps Ranch Planning Group.

Uh I've been uh part of Scripps Ranch for 26 years.

My family's lived here.

My son is also played little league on this field.

My daughter's done Girl Scouts bridging here.

Uh they are both off and uh in other cities now, grown and gone.

Um first and foremost, as everybody's already said, we want to thank uh Assemblyman Brian Manchang and his chief of staff, Lance Whitman.

Is he up here?

In there.

Okay, thank you, Lance.

Uh like I said, I was given a list of names.

I know you didn't want me to mention you, but uh this is from Bob.

Uh we want to thank them for their tremendous fortitude in getting this grant approved.

It was a long time in coming.

Um I'd like to thank Mayor Gloria and Councilmember Von Wilpert uh for their support in this endeavor, along with Quentin Grounds, who kept our community very well informed.

So thank you, Quentin.

He's he's at every single one of our meetings, and uh he's always been just a great voice for our community.

Um I'd like to um mention, which actually has already been mentioned by everybody.

Um there are many groups and community members throughout Scripps Ranch that are very excited about the improvements coming to Jarabek Park.

This park hosts, which you've all already already heard recreational soccer, little league baseball, um, old pros softball every Sunday.

That's been going on for a very long time.

Girl Scouts bridging ceremonies and their annual Christmas tree lighting, along with all the residents um that enjoy the Symphony in the Park holiday concerts.

Um these improvements will enable this the disabled members of our community to participate and enjoy more of these events now and into the future, and we do really appreciate that.

Uh, I do want to thank a few more people from the Scripps Ranch Civic Association and the planning group.

Much members such as Mark Sorensen, which was mentioned.

Uh he back in 2011 asked the city for a cost estimate for ADA improvements, and that's really what set the stage.