FREMONT — A political Tug-of-war over access to Mission Peak Regional Preserve in Fremont is intensifying, as top city officials and East Bay Regional Park District leaders debate over whether a popular entrance to the park should remain closed amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The park district on April 17 temporarily closed the Stanford Avenue trailhead and staging area — the more commonly used entrance to Mission Peak — after Fremont’s city manager asked the district to shutter it, and the police chief ordered the district to do so, citing concerns about lack of social distancing and the possible spread of the virus.

Now, just as the park district was set to take down fencing and reopen the staging area, Fremont’s Police Chief Kimberly Petersen has threatened to close part of a city road that leads to the area if the district doesn’t extend the closure “through the duration of the shelter-in-place order.”

“Given the lack of enforcement for social distancing violations at the Stanford Staging Area, and the ongoing danger this presents to public health and community safety, I will close Stanford Avenue in front of the Mission Peak trails, staging area and parking lot that are accessed from Stanford Avenue…unless you choose to extend your own closure of this entrance,” Petersen wrote in an April 30 letter to the district.

The Stanford Avenue entrance was originally set to reopen Tuesday morning, but Dave Mason, a park district spokesman said Monday it will remain closed through Tuesday, and the district will be “making an announcement at the end of the day Tuesday regarding the staging area.”

Mason said he couldn’t elaborate on details of the announcement.

Though Mission Peak remains accessible via the trailhead near the Ohlone College parking garage, district leadership was reluctant to close the Stanford Avenue entrance, pushing back against the city’s requests and the police chief’s claim to authority under the county health orders.

“We do not agree with the city’s position that (the closure) should be extended longer, nor do they have the authority…to demand that we do that,” Robert Doyle, the park district general manager said at an April 21 meeting.

“We believe this is an important park for the public. We also believe that the district has been complying with the health order and that the risk to the public is not there if they follow the protocols that we have put in place,” he said previously.

Mason said Monday that district officials monitoring Mission Peak and other parks have seen “a lot of people” following social distancing rules.

“Yes, some folks are not, we want them to improve, of course,” Mason said. “But we see a lot of folks trying, and a lot of people following social distancing, including wearing a mask within six feet,” he said.

Fremont City Manager Mark Danaj, in an April 9 letter to the district, claimed city staff and elected officials, as well as residents who reported complaints to the city, had seen visitors of the Stanford Avenue staging area failing to comply with social distancing requirements in effect under the current county and state health orders.

Danaj requested the district close the area until one week after shelter in place orders were lifted, which at the time were only in effect through May 4.

As a result of that letter, the park district temporarily included the Stanford Avenue staging area among several park district access points and parking lots it closed over Easter weekend to cut back on the potential for crowding.

However, the district said it planned to reopen the entrance after Easter weekend, and would further discuss Fremont’s request to extend the closure at its April 21 meeting, which prompted Petersen to send a follow-up letter on April 13.

Petersen said the park district didn’t go far enough to “provide the continuity required to mitigate the risk of spread of the virus,” and claimed that due to overcrowding, operating Mission Peak was a violation of the county health order, and ordered the district to close the Stanford Avenue staging area.

Though park district officials said Petersen had no authority to demand the closure of the area, the district nonetheless decided to close the Stanford Avenue entrance at a special April 16 meeting through April 21.

At the district board’s April 21 meeting, the district decided to close the entrance through May 4, in part to give staff time to work out a plan to resume restroom cleaning and trash pickup services there, which had been halted across much of the district for the safety of district employees.

Park district board member Ayn Wieskamp said at a prior meeting she was told by park managers at Mission Peak there was “human waste on the streets in various locations, including in the back of the restrooms” and garbage strewn in the area near the entrance.

Mason, the park district spokesman, said Monday the restroom cleaning for facilities that are along trails and trash pickup had largely been resumed district-wide.

Geneva Bosques, a spokeswoman for the Fremont Police Department, as of noon Monday, the district fences blocking the staging area were still up, so the city had not taken any action to put up its own fences.

The power struggle over how to handle access via the Stanford Avenue entrance amid the coronavirus pandemic comes as the park district is negotiating a new lease with the city, which owns the land the Stanford Avenue staging area is on. The current lease agreement ends in July.