Serving Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa and surrounding communities

By John Earl
Editor

Huntington Beach voters will be asked to revise the city’s Central Park Master Plan to allow construction of an estimated 45,000 square ft., $23 million senior center to be located on five acres of open park area, roughly across from the Central Library on Goldenwest Street.

The new senior center would relocate and upgrade the 11,881 sq. foot Michael E. Rodgers Seniors’ Center now nestled on 17th and Orange streets.

The procedure used by the city council to place the proposal on the November 7th ballot and the vague wording of the ballot statement challenge the public’s ability to control development in the city’s 356 acre Central Park.

In 1990, a group of HB residents, hoping to stop plans for a golf course in Central Park, put Measure C, also known as the Save Our Parks initiative, on the ballot. It became Section 612 of the City Charter and requires a vote of the people on proposed developments on city park or beach land that rise above 3,000 sq. feet or $100,000 in costs.

Proponents of the senior center ballot measure say that Section 612 gives the city council the final vote of approval, but opponents say that the voters have final approval after all city approvals have been met.

The city council passed a minute action in 1994 clarifying that Section 612 intends “a vote of the people be the final approval of projects approved by the city for construction on park land or beaches,” adding that all projects that fit the charter amendment’s criteria “must obtain all city approvals prior to being submitted to a vote of the people.”

The minute action was to remain in effect unless rescinded by the city council at a later date and has not been rescinded yet. But the city council virtually ignored it at meetings on July 3rd and 17th, when the senior center proposal and its ballot language were discussed and voted upon. In fact, City Attorney Jennifer McGrath told the council that for the purpose of a Section 612 (or Measure C) vote, the public has no right to know detailed cost or design details or to be allowed the final vote on proposed park developments.

The City Attorney also stipulated that a “yes” vote on the ballot measure does not mean that a senior center will be built. But a yes vote would require the land area in question to conform to the ballot description.“There would be a concern if its not used as a senior center,” McGrath said, “and anything less than that will cause the same [legal] question.”

McGrath modeled the senior center ballot language after language used for the 1996 measure that approved the Sports Complex, an unsettling thought for many HB voters who remember that costs for the Complex soared from an estimated $1.9 million to $19 million before completion.

Council members Don Hansen and Keith Bhor agreed that it is better to have a public vote on the senior center before its details are known than to wait until thousands or even millions of dollars have been spent on research, only to have it rejected by the voters. “We shouldn’t undertake ...allocating it out for a site that may be flatly rejected by the people,” Hansen said at the July 17th city council meeting. He added that sufficient information about the senior center will be available through voter education materials and public debate.

Consequently, HB residents will base their November 7th vote on vague and largely hypothetical information—including a $23 million non-site cost estimate—provided by LPA, an Irvine based architectural and interior design firm. That fact lead council member Debbie Cook to declare the vote “meaningless” and to warn of possible legal liability for the city. “I just can’t believe that a court will not say that it’s [the ballot language] not misleading,” she said.

Bhor, trying to understand the motive behind Cook’s opposition, asked if there were any conditions under which she would support putting the issue on the ballot “or is it straight out that you don’t want to lose open space?”

“First and foremost,” Cook answered, “is that the city can’t afford this–and even without any study, without figuring out where the money is coming from.”

Referring to the possible but as yet undetermined funding from $19 million in other developer fees, and pointing out that the city’s parks and recreation fund is already tapped out, Cook said that proponents would “spend it all in one place” rather than use it for a multitude of “desperately needed” park and infrastructure projects throughout the city. “If we decide we can afford it after we’ve studied that, then, yes, let the citizens decide if they want it or not...”

Nothing will happen without money, of course, and the senior center has had its share of funding problems in recent years, especially with efforts by President Bush to all but eliminate federal Community Block Development Grant funds to cities. “We’re always struggling with how we’re going to disperse that limited money,” Cook told the Orange Coast Voice. “They’re reducing the amount of money each year.”

In fact, minutes prior to approving ballot language for the senior center vote, the city council voted to take $32,000 from the city’s general fund and give it to the current senior center in order to make up for lost CBDG funds that are used to provide social services and infrastructure improvements benefitting lower income residents.

For Bob Detloff, co-organizer of the Committee to Support Our Seniors, there’s no reason to worry about runaway costs associated with the senior center proposal, lack of details in the ballot measure or taking away funds needed for other park and city needs. The $23 million estimate, he told the council, “is padded with contingency” to be on the safe side. Giving specific cost and construction figures would be misleading, he said, “possibly skewing the vote.” Details should be developed by city contractors, he said, and “exuberant architects and runaway costs” held back by the checks and balances of city government.

As for taking away universally needed but scarce city funds, Detloff says it’s up to city services to figure out how to spread the money. It’s a job they do well, he told the Orange Coast Voice. “They are doing that, whatever the opposition says.”

For Hansen, the core question is “do we build in the park or do we not build in the park.” Councilmember Jilly Hardy already gave her answer to that question at the July 3rd city council meeting: “When it comes to paving Central Park, it just goes against what the whole purpose of the park was from the beginning.”

Whatever the outcome on November 7, and pending possible legal action, HB residents will not have the ultimate power of approval over park development that many original supporters of the Save Our Parks initiative envisioned.

How they voted:

Yes: Hansen, Bhor, Green, Coerper, Sullivan
No: Hardy, Cook

Proposed Senior Center Stirs HB
Voters will be asked to change city's Central Park Master Plan

The ballot measure reads:

Shall a centrally located senior center building, not to exceed 47,000 square feet, be placed on a maximum of five acres of an undeveloped 14-acre parcel in the 356-acre Huntington Beach Central Park, generally located west of the intersection of Goldenwest Street and Talbert Avenue, between the disc golf course and Shipley Nature Center, following the City Council approval of all entitlements and environmental review?

As currently envisioned by the city council majority, a 'yes' vote would lock in the park site for a future senior center, but public hearings and city council approval are required before construction begins. By giving approval to a preliminary proposal lacking precise cost and design details, the public loses its right to give final approval to actual rather than conceptual park developments that meet Section 612 criteria.

Section 612 of the City Charter reads:

No golf course, driving range, road, building over three thousand square feet in floor area nor structure costing more than $100,000 may be built on or in any park or beach or portion thereof now or hereafter owned or operated by the City unless authorized by affirmative votes of at least a majority of the total membership of the City Council and by the affirmative vote of at least a majority of the electors voting on such proposition...

Some Facts About the Michael E. Rodgers Senior Center
(Based on the LPA report, Center officials and Orange Coast Voice observation)

The goal of the Senior Center, according to Senior Services supervisor Randy L. Pasqueira, is "to maintain independence as long as possible and maintain the dignity of life."

Main building at 17th and Orange was built in the early 1940's.

Began operating as a senior center in 1975.

The Center is 14,505 square feet, including the Senior Outreach Center built in 1992.

Most senior center users are low to moderate income.

The Meals to the Home program provides three meals per day to 140 clients.

In 2005 about 110,000 meals were given to HB's frail and elderly residents.

No person is turned down who needs food. The price is $2.50 for over 60 and $3.50 under 60.

The  Center provides free transportation to any HB senior to any location inside of the city, about 2,700 trips each month provided by paid and volunteer drivers.

The Center offers a myriad of social, legal, education and recreational services to HB seniors.

There were over 53,000 visits to the Center between January and July of this year.

The current building is overtaxed: its rooms provide for multiple uses and are unable to adequately serve a growing number of healthier and more active senior visitors.

A 64 percent increase in HB's senior population is predicted by 2020.

According to the LPA report:

"Using the 1970 census figures, the level of service [at the Rodgers Center] was 10,531 square feet per 5,000 senior population when the Center opened. In 2005 there has been a 79 percent decline in the service level to 2,200 square feet per 5,000. Without increased square footage, the level of service is expected to decline to 1,354 square feet by the year 2020."

Orginally published September, 2006