There isn’t much to look at in Ennes Park, but what there is to look at isn’t bad. It’s a peaceful little park, in a corner of Arcata that borders the Bottoms. It’s tucked away next to a farm, and the park — it’s mostly a field — looks like one too. It might not forever. 

Besides a small playground, the park’s main utility is a hard-packed dirt path that winds around the field, about a quarter-mile long. It’s a rough, rocky path, and the city is considering pursuing a way to pave the path for accessibility. John Kell III, the chair of Arcata’s Park and Recreation committee, told the Outpost that improving the park was one of the committee’s “highest priorities.” (It has no regulatory powers, and exists to make recommendations to city officials.)

“It’s a little bit of paradise,” Kell said. 

The committee’s meetings are usually pretty sparsely attended, Kell said, but two people showed up during a meeting in September of last year to advocate for Ennes, their neighborhood park, with “blueprint-grade” renderings and measurements of what the park could look like if the city sunk some money into it. One of them, Mika Day, said she had a son who uses a wheelchair and couldn’t get around the park himself. Kell, intrigued, took a trip there one morning with them. While he was there, he saw a person in a wheelchair trying to roll their way around the park. They made it just a few yards up the path before they were forced to turn around. “It was the perfect example of why this should be accessible,” Kell said. 

Later, Kell saw a man and his kid using the playground, and he said he wished that he could longboard around the park with his wife accompanying him on roller blades. (Tough to do that off-road.) “My other thing is skateboarding and making sure that people can roller skate and skateboard, and, you know, do all things with rolling small rolling wheels,” Kell said. “…I was just, like, ‘Oh my god, this is just one of those mornings where the whole picture is kind of coming into view.’”

Arcata’s made some upgrades to the park over the last couple years, upgrading the playground, adding a built-in cornhole set, and planting some trees. 

City hall is looking into finding funding somewhere, Kell said. He’s the Northern Humboldt Union High School District’s nurse, and he’d like to see some kind of paved path built, if it means it’d get people outside and active.

“I just hope it gets people outside and it gets people enjoying our parks, and it gets people fighting early onset diabetes and fighting some of the things that are plaguing our society right now,” he said. “…I just hope it gets people out and healthy and stoked — mental health and physical health, all at the same time.”

The city did not immediately respond to a request for comment.