Bathrooms at Ascarate Park set to be fixed by end of 2021, county officials say
EL PASO, Texas — It’s an afterthought for most people: Using the restroom.
After many years of no access to them, one popular park in the Lower Valley is getting them back.
When you go to Ascarate Park you can play, golf, and fish, but you’ll have a hard time finding an open bathroom.
“We have kids and they need to use the restroom and sometimes they’re closed,” Lluvia Topete said.
When you actually have to use the restroom, you can see the buildings from afar, but when you walk up to the door, you realize that you can’t get in.
“We have to go back home and then come back,” Topete said.
“You have to drive to get to a place, that’s not to convenient to us,” Crystal Lucano said.
After years of planning, El Paso County leaders are in a place to fix the simple necessity.
“The funding has been approved,” the Director for El Paso County’s Parks and Recreation Department, Veronica Myers, said.
Money was allocated to fix the restrooms two years ago but after problems in the planning process, the project was delayed.
“From vendors withdrawing their bid to our public works engineers designing it and COVID-19 budget restraints,” Myers said.
“The only [bathroom] we could find was [way] over there,” Isaiah Regalado said.
“It definitely with help with our costs of port-o-potties,” Myers said.
The county spends $13,000 to give park goers a place to use the restroom.
That money will now be shifted in to the over $585,000 budget for the project.
“I’m sure everyone that uses Ascarate [Park] is going to enjoy that,” Myers said.
“Hopefully, we need it,” Lucano said.
Myers said there are still some steps to take in the planning process so there’s not a set date for the repair to begin. However, the project is expected to be complete by the end of 2021.
