Mission Hills Group Opposes Sale : Little League Moves to Save Field

The Mission Hills Little League has launched a campaign to block the federal government’s proposed sale of land the league has used for 17 years as playing fields.

League President Carl E. Carlson said petitions opposing the sale, containing more than 1,100 signatures, were mailed Tuesday to federal officials. The signatures were obtained Saturday and Sunday, Carlson said, shortly after he was notified that most of the 7 1/2 acres the league leases on the grounds of the Veterans Administration Hospital in Sepulveda might be auctioned off sometime this year to help balance the federal budget.

A hastily composed letter explaining the league’s plight, which was mailed with the petitions, also was sent to several community leaders and organizations, Carlson said.

‘Nowhere Else to Go’

“We need the help of everyone in the community,” he said. “If we lose our fields, we’ll have nowhere else to go.”

Carlson said a rally in support of the league is scheduled for Thursday evening in Panorama City. He said the league’s board of directors also has requested that a public hearing be scheduled before federal officials.

The land in question--along with a nine-hole golf course the league runs and maintains for the hospital in exchange for use of the fields--was among 46 acres at the 164-acre hospital that were identified as excess federal property in a report prepared late last year for the General Service Administration. That agency serves as property manager for federally owned land.

Houses Recommended

Auditors who prepared the report concluded that the property would be better used for the construction of single-family dwellings.

Carlson said the league’s three playing fields and the golf course at the back and side of the hospital grounds are the only public recreational space in the area.

He said the Sepulveda Little League was incorporated into the Mission Hills group two years ago after the privately owned land it used as its playing field was sold.

“There’s a parking lot there now,” he said.

The closest public park with a Little League playing field is in Granada Hills, he said, and “they’re full up. The whole Little League program in this community is in danger if we lose this land.”

Rocco Bellantoni, staff assistant to the hospital director, said hospital officials recently were asked by the Veterans Administration to “write an impact statement regarding what effect the sale of the property” would have on the facility.

“We have gone on record to our central office in Washington, D.C., that we do not feel we have any excess property and that we would like to retain all of the property we now have,” Bellantoni said.

The property identified as excess is used for therapeutic purposes, he said, in that patients watch baseball games and have free use of the golf course. Bellantoni said about 400 rounds of golf a month are played on the course. Although the course is open to the public, he said, most of its users are patients.

In addition, Bellantoni said, the hospital benefits from the good relationship it has built with the community through use of its facilities.

League officials Tuesday said they have obtained the backing of baseball Commissioner Peter V. Ueberroth. Carlson said Ueberroth has agreed to write letters to federal officials in support of the Mission Hills league.

U.S. Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Studio City), who represents Mission Hills, also said he would back the league’s efforts. Alan Schiff, Berman’s congressional aide, said he will attend Thursday night’s rally and speak on behalf of the congressman. The meeting is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at the Sizzler restaurant in the 14500 block of Nordhoff Street.

“We will continue to work to see that the league does not lose its field,” Schiff said. “I’d love to throw out the first ball for them when their season opens March 15.”

Carlson said 500 boys and girls from 6 to 15 years old participate in the league each year.

The Mission Hills league’s senior all-star team of 14- and 15-year-olds won the Little League’s Western Regional championship last year and placed fourth when it played in the Little League World Series, Carlson said.