Oceanside city officials, police, street artists collaborate on mural project

Art paying tribute to military and law enforcement, the famous Oceanside pier, characters from the film the Sandlot, and graffiti art surround the little league fields at Ron Ortega Park in Oceanside. It was a vision four years in the making. “To make it look better for our park … for our community … in different ways. We can have the city involved, we can have the police department involved, the artists involved, at the same time,” said Cerbando Ramirez Jr., the president of Oceanside American Little League. He said it was beautiful to see street artists working hand in hand with city officials and police. “These artists do their work after hours, in the dark, behind some alleys, or on freeways or wherever. They get nervous when police departments are nearby,” he said. “OPD (Oceanside Police Department) was walking up to them, shaking their hands, thanking them that there’s a bigger picture here. And the bigger picture was to cross those paths and say, ‘they’re not bad individuals for being artists or taggers.'”  Mike Lagos, an art curator with Oside Hit Ups, helped bring different artists together for the murals. “It’s all about community and bringing us together,” Lagos...