Coalition Campaigns for $750-Million Parks Bond Measure : Environment: L.A. County officials worry that the proposal could turn voters against bond measures for jails and hospitals.

In a sunny office overlooking the Malibu coast, a serious-faced young woman named Esther Feldman is quietly helping hatch a political game plan she hopes will result in Los Angeles County voters passing what is apparently the biggest bond measure in county history.

For up to 14 hours a day, Feldman, 28, confers with environmentalists and city managers, businessmen and labor activists, earnestly pitching the need for $750 million in bonds to improve beaches, parks, wildlife habitats and museums as a tonic for the woes of urbanization.

“This county is so appallingly behind in terms of providing adequate park and recreation and open-space opportunities for its residents,” she said, sitting in her office high on a Malibu ridgetop, the gleaming Pacific beyond the window.

“The faster this county grows--and it hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down--the more extreme the needs get,” said Feldman, who is public outreach director for the Malibu-based Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, a state and local government agency that provides recreation and ranger services for parks in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

“Unless we act now, we aren’t going to have a chance to act,” she said.

But some county officials have raised questions about the massive park bond measure, which promoters are trying to persuade county supervisors to place on the November ballot. Officials are concerned that the bonds may drive the county’s debt too high and jeopardize the chances for passage of other bond measures on the same ballot, including those for hospitals and jails.

If approved by voters, the bond revenue would be split among the county’s 86 cities and county-maintained beaches, museums, botanical gardens and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which buys parklands in the mountains surrounding the San Fernando Valley.

The conservancy would receive $120 million, which could be used to buy more land in the Santa Monicas, as well as help complete the proposed “Rim of the Valley” trail system, Feldman said.

Another $120 million would be earmarked for the cities, with the money parceled out on a per-capita basis. Los Angeles, with 3.4 million people, would get nearly $53 million, for example, while tiny Hidden Hills, with just 1,950 residents, would draw $30,000.

In addition, $50 million would be set aside for county beaches and $40 million to preserve historic structures, construct hiking and biking trails and plant trees in urban areas.

Joel Segal, a spokesman for County Chief Administrator Richard Dixon, said the measure would be the largest general obligation bond issue in county history “to the best of my knowledge.” The next largest was a $225-million flood control issue in the late 1950s, he said.

The general obligation bonds would be secured by county property tax revenue and paid off over about 20 years. According to Feldman, they would cost the average property taxpayer an extra $27 in the first year and about half that in successive years.

To promote the bonds, Feldman and other organizers are fashioning an odd-bedfellows coalition whose members range from Sierra Club members to inner-city activists who believe the bonds promise relief for urban parks overrun by gangs and drug dealers.

Another leader in the bond campaign, Lynn Alvarez, said the bonds could ease conflict in many heavily Latino neighborhoods over what sports can be played in parks. Although most parks are now set up only for softball and baseball, bond revenue could be used to build soccer fields, making them more attractive to Latinos, she said.

Alvarez, an immigration lawyer who heads a group called People for Parks, said the measure could help revive the 200 “dead parks”--rundown parks that have essentially been taken over by gangs and drug dealers--throughout the county.

Bond backers launched their campaign about a year ago after commissioning a $15,000 opinion poll to test voter support for the measure. The poll, paid for with public funds by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and two smaller park agencies, found that 76% of the county’s registered voters would vote for the bonds, Feldman said.

Joseph Edmiston, executive director of the conservancy, said strategists originally intended to include Ventura County in the measure but dropped the idea, fearing conservative Ventura voters would oppose it, lessening the chance it would win the necessary two-thirds majority to pass.

Much of the day-to-day organizing of the bond campaign is being done by Feldman, a one-time UC extension agriculture teacher who served as assistant campaign manager for Proposition 70, a statewide park bond issue that was approved by voters in 1988 and raised $776 million.

She and other supporters have contacted scores of city officials, surveying them to find out what park projects need funding. More recently, promoters have been contacting county supervisors, whom they want to place the bonds on the November ballot.

Unless more funds are made available to local government soon, Feldman said, skyrocketing land costs may make it impossible to acquire sufficient park and recreation areas.

Feldman said that despite the success of Proposition 70 and other statewide bond issues, Los Angeles County--with about one-third of California’s population--traditionally has been shortchanged on revenue it receives. For instance, of the $776 million generated by Proposition 70, the county received only $120 million, she said.

But Dixon has questioned the bond issue and at least one supervisor--Peter Schabarum--opposes it. Supervisors Kenneth Hahn and Ed Edelman support the measure, while Supervisors Mike Antonovich and Deane Dana are undecided, their spokesmen said.

In a memo to supervisors Aug. 22, Dixon said the measure’s presence on the November ballot would “cause it to compete with other issues critical” to the county. He cited a proposed half-cent sales tax increase for county jail construction and operation. Antonovich and Dana have similar concerns, spokesmen said.

Dixon also pointed out that park bond proceeds could be used only to buy or build new facilities, not to maintain existing ones.

“Given that we cannot afford to adequately operate various recreational facilities we already have, it makes little sense to significantly expand development further beyond that point which we cannot already afford to maintain,” he wrote.

However, in a later memo, Dixon said he still was considering whether the county should support the bonds, which he noted were backed by a “broad-based, well-organized effort which appears to be gaining support.”

Feldman said there is no evidence that voters reject bond issues simply because other bond measures are on the same ballot. In 1988, voters statewide rejected just one of 14 bond measures on the ballot, she said.

She acknowledged that general obligation bonds can be spent only to build new projects, but argued that replacing old, worn-out facilities that are costly to keep up would reduce overall maintenance costs over time.

In a statement, Schabarum said he opposes the park bond measure because it is only one of five property- or sales-tax increases that are under discussion and may wind up on the county ballot. The supervisor said that besides raising property taxes, he was very concerned about increasing the county’s bond debts.

Feldman responded that the county is in good financial health and can easily afford the park bonds. She said annual debt payments are 1.89% of the county budget, well below the 5% limit recommended by Standard and Poor’s, a nationwide credit-rating agency.