White Point Panel Studies Athletic Fields for Angels Gate

Los Angeles Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores has named Angels Gate Park as a potential site for youth athletic facilities in San Pedro, and the suggestion could settle a bitter community debate about what to do with another park--White Point.

Flores confirmed Monday that she raised the idea several weeks ago with the head of a citizens advisory committee that is studying the future of White Point, a vacant 102-acre parcel overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Debate over White Point has divided San Pedro. A coalition representing youth groups is demanding that 35 acres of the former Nike missile base be set aside for a sports complex, but other residents insist the land should be turned into a state park and nature preserve.

State officials are interested in the land, but only if they can have all of it. Thus, finding alternative sites for the ball fields--such as Angels Gate--could remove the major stumbling block to making White Point a state park.

Flores has generally kept in the background while the White Point Citizens Advisory Committee does its work. Her conversation with committee Chairman Jerry Gaines, however, prompted him to ask the committee to look into putting ball fields at Angels Gate Park as well as three other sites--the Fort MacArthur Upper Reservation near Angels Gate, the Navy Fuel Depot between Gaffey Street and Western Avenue, and 10 undeveloped acres of Harbor College in Wilmington.

‘Worth Looking Into’

“I think anything is worth looking into,” Flores said Monday.

Last week, the committee voted 12 to 1 to follow Gaines’ recommendation. The extra work will delay the committee’s recommendation, originally expected in December, by two months.

Gaines said he also discussed Angels Gate with top officials at the Department of Recreation and Parks, which intends to draw up a master plan for Angels Gate Park and would consider including ball fields in the plan.

In light of those discussions, Gaines said there is a high probability that the committee will recommend putting ball fields at Angels Gate Park.

But Mike Lansing, spokesman for the youth coalition, said his group will not give up its quest for White Point Park. “We’re committed to it, so we’re not going to back down for any maybes or promises,” Lansing said.

Lansing said he objects to all four sites the committee voted to review. Harbor College, he said, is unacceptable because it is not in San Pedro. He said the other three sites are no good because the federal government retains the right to reclaim them.

The youth coalition is especially sensitive about land that has “reversionary rights” attached to it.

$420,000 in State Funds

Earlier this year, the coalition lobbied unsuccessfully to prevent the former Martin J. Bogdanovich Recreation Center from being returned to the military for housing. In 1983, the city used about $420,000 in state funds to landscape Bogdanovich and construct a baseball diamond and a soccer field there.

The 22-acre Bogdanovich Park, along with 13 acres at White Point, was turned over to the military in April as part of a deal that was designed to preserve the remainder of White Point as open space--and possibly a state park. But after the youth coalition lost the battle over Bogdanovich, it began to lobby for White Point.

The White Point committee has proposed other sites to replace the fields lost at Bogdanovich, but the youth coalition says the replacements are not enough to make up for a steady decline in athletic facilities in San Pedro since 1950.

Flores agrees that San Pedro needs more athletic facilities. But she said it was very shortsighted of Lansing not to consider sites outside of San Pedro. She also said she would not recommend any site for ball fields unless the federal government gives up its right to reclaim it.

“Never again will I commit to anything without having the full release of reversionary rights,” Flores said.

Replied Lansing: “If and when that happens, then that is a consideration, but to this point it hasn’t happened, and there’s never been any talk of it happening.”

Both Lansing and Pat Nave, the dissenting committee member, said they think the committee’s search for alternate sites is an attempt to prevent White Point from ever being used for ball fields, thus saving it for a state park.

But Gaines said the committee would consider placing ball fields at White Point even if other sites were found.

Gaines said it is important for the committee to look at all the options before deciding what to do at White Point. He said the review will allow the committee to “try to accommodate both broad-based interest in this community and the special interests such as the youth issue.”

Lansing, who says he has broad support in San Pedro, chided Gaines for that comment, saying he was “getting tired of hearing that youth athletics is a special-interest issue.”