Tennis Center Becomes a Make-work Project

In Joni Mitchell’s song, they paved paradise and put up a parking lot. It applies to the city-owned tennis center at Marguerite Parkway and Casta Drive. Tennis players (who pay a fee to use the facility) asked for one more court, bringing the total to eight, so they could host tournaments. City staffers are pretending to fix the tennis court situation by breaking everything else.

Mature trees and a riparian habitat are casualties of the project. Incredibly, city hall’s gurus will bring in 4,000 truckloads of dirt to fill in a ravine. The plan also calls for creating an intersection on Casta Drive by cutting the median at the entrance to the parking lot on the south side. Another impact is on the city’s treasury, $3.7 million for a project that largely benefits consultants and contractors.

Mission Viejo residents – including some of the tennis players – question the point of such expense. Who added two basketball courts, and what was the reason? As another issue, the city intends to build part of the project on private property (owned by American Golf). If that isn’t illegal, how do they explain this gift of public funds?

City Manager Dennis Wilberg seems confused about the number of parking spaces. Do the numbers represent a net gain of 51 spaces as he says or a net loss of six spaces?

Missing is the premise that tennis players need more parking spaces. Street parking is available except when the Nadadores host a swim meet (six times a year, according to city data). Have attendees complained that they have to walk from an adjacent street to a sporting event? City code would require only 418 spaces for this facility.

Current parking spaces total 557 (from the July 6 Council Agenda Item No. 37), with the number of parking spaces on dirt added in on the basis of an estimate.
 

Future planned parking zones and numbers follow. However, the 20 spaces on basketball courts in Zone 1 might be unavailable as parking if the court is fenced.

• Zone 1 – behind the Aquatics and Tennis Center, provides 276 spaces, including the 36 overflow spaces and the 20 questionable basketball court overflow spaces.
• Zone 2 – adjacent to the tennis clubhouse and Marguerite Pkwy will be eliminated despite tennis players’ request to preserve these spaces.
• Zone 3 – a YMCA lot provides 44 spaces.
• Zone 4 – a YMCA lot provides 27 spaces.
• Zone 5 – on-street parking on Trabuco Circle/Via Santa Clara provides 126 spaces.
• Zone 6 – on-street parking on Marguerite Parkway provides 98 spaces.

The projected total for all six zones is 571. With the current total of 557, that’s a gain of 14, not 51 as Wilberg claims. If the basketball courts are unavailable for parking, that’s a net loss of six spaces.

In 2003, city watchdogs successfully shut down Wilberg’s make-work project for a city contractor after activist Bo Klein discovered that Granich Construction was moving dirt around in Lower Curtis Park. The city council had not approved the $200,000-plus grading project, and Wilberg (who was Director of Public Works back then) couldn’t come up with valid reasons he had decided to enrich an otherwise idle contractor. Ultimately, Wilberg made excuses that were laughable, including a “danger” of the weight of debris on waterlines. Water district officials scoffed at his statements.

Mission Viejo is maintaining a city staff of approximately 150 throughout a global trend of downsizing. This built-out, contract-based city does not have enough legitimate work to keep 150 people busy. By comparison, Rancho Santa Margarita has fewer than 25 full-time employees.

Since the city council majority has ignored residents’ pleas to limit the tennis center project to what is reasonable, the next time residents will have an opportunity to react is the Nov. 2 General Election.