Hansen Dam : Equestrian Trail Going Nowhere

Ground has not been broken on the Hansen Dam equestrian trail, despite city assurances 6 months ago that the trail would be completed by Jan. 1, Los Angeles parks officials said Monday.

During a meeting at the dam Monday afternoon, people who ride horses in the area demanded to know why the city Department of Recreation and Parks had not fulfilled the agreement reached during a similar meeting June 1.

“What I’m hearing is we’re still in the black hole of Calcutta,” said equestrian Gini Barrett. “I like the way they always say they’re going to do it, and then they never do it.”

The June agreement calls for grading 2 1/2 miles of trail to connect with existing northeast San Fernando Valley horse trails, installing railings along both sides of the connecting trail to keep horses and riders off the dam’s face and off the adjacent city golf course, and building a bridge across the dam spillway.

Project Grew

City officials blamed the delays on changes in the scope of the project, which have forced them to ask a contractor for new estimates. Kathleen E. Chan, the project’s design manager who represented the city at Monday’s meeting, said she did not know the details of the delays.

Chan said that if recent modifications of the project are approved by city parks and recreation commissioners at their Dec. 9 meeting, the trail will be usable by the end of January.

However, Chan admitted that the $147,000 in state grants the city has available for the trail will not be enough to finish the project. The city has applied for an additional $175,000 in state bond money, but state officials said no decision will be reached on the request until February and the money will not be distributed until July.

Horse riders and politicians have accused the city of dragging its feet since the trail was dedicated 4 years ago, partly because the project is in a poorer section of the Valley.

“The frustrating thing is if this was Sepulveda Basin, it would already have been done. If this was Griffith Park, it would be done,” said Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda) who lives near the dam and is Barrett’s husband.

Katz stood with former Councilman Howard Finn at the 1984 trail dedication.

“We didn’t expect to be standing here 4 years later and not having a damn thing done yet,” Katz said.

Within 2 years of the dedication, the Recreation and Parks Department had received most of the $150,000 it at first estimated the trail would cost--$77,500 from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and $66,000 from a state parks bond act. Since then, the money has earned about $3,500 in interest, bringing the total available to $147,000.

But Joel Breitbart, the parks department’s assistant general manager, said in a telephone interview that location has had nothing to do with the delays. Breitbart said building the section of the Hansen Dam trail has proved to be more complicated than expected.

Breitbart said that John Ward-- city parks manager in charge of the Valley--had insisted that a separate horse bridge be built over the spillway to avoid city liability from potential collisions on the existing bridge between horses and golf carts.

Requirements for the new bridge, issued at the June meeting by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers--which owns the dam--more than doubled the estimated cost of the bridge to $150,000, forcing the city to reassess whether it could afford to build the bridge, Breitbart said. After Ward retired this fall, his replacement, Dave Gonzalez, decided the existing bridge could be used, Breitbart said.

“It would have taken all the money that we had to build just the bridge,” Breitbart said. “We’re not saying it would not be better with a second bridge--clearly it would be better with a second bridge. But we’re saying let’s give this a try.”

Grant Extended

At the June meeting, John Diaz, a conservancy spokesman, said his board would withdraw support for the project if progress was not made. The conservancy grant, set to expire June 30, 1988, was extended for a year based on Breitbart’s promises that work would start during the summer, Diaz said Monday.

Diaz said he became concerned about progress on the project when the city failed to provide quarterly reports on its status.

“The only notification we got was a request for additional money,” he said. Diaz said that as long as trail construction is started soon, the conservancy will let the city add at least $15,000 to the horse trail budget that was left over from a conservancy grant for a Chatsworth trail.

With that additional money, the city will be able to buy enough railing to rim more than half of the trail, Breitbart said. To complete the job the city has applied for another $175,000 for the horse trail from the $776 million provided in the California Wildlife Coastal and Park Land Conservation Bond Act of 1988.