City May Restrict Pool Use : Recreation: Proposal would limit access for private groups, such as club that dominated a Westwood facility.

A private swimming club’s use of most swimming lanes at the city’s popular Westwood Recreation Center during peak hours has angered some recreational swimmers and led city officials to consider restricting such arrangements.

City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, whose district includes Westwood, described the club’s arrangement as “outrageous.” He said he supports a proposal by the city’s Recreation and Parks Department that would severely restrict private groups using pools throughout the city. “We didn’t spend ($5.4 million) in public funds on the building to provide semi-exclusive use for a private group, especially when it is profit-making,” he said.

The proposal would rank pool users, giving highest priority to city-sponsored swim programs and lowest priority to private groups that make money by charging members to use the pools. It would also prohibit any group from using more than half of a pool and would increase pool fees paid by private organizations.

Westwood resident Rhoda Slakoff, who swims regularly at the pool, said some recreational swimmers have become so disenchanted by the private group’s domination of the facility that they no longer swim there.

“These people take up the most important hours during the day: before work, during lunch time and immediately after work,” Slakoff said. “I just don’t understand this idea that you can run a private business from a public facility. Taxpayers’ money supports a facility like this.”

The Recreation and Parks Department does not have a policy governing private use of its 57 swimming pools--nine of which are open year-round--although there are restrictions on city-owned tennis courts and other sports facilities. The pool proposal is expected to be debated by the Board of Recreation and Park Commissioners next month.

“We have the facilities and everyone in the world wants to try to make money off of them,” said Jane Rasco, the department’s assistant general manager who oversees the $5.4-million Westwood center, regarded as the premier public recreation facility in Los Angeles. “We are trying very diligently not to let that happen.”

But members of the Southern California Aquatic Masters Swimmers Club say they are providing a valuable service at the Westwood pool and have mounted a campaign to defeat the proposed changes, which they contend are designed to put the club out of business. The group also trains at a city-owned pool in Venice and two public pools in Santa Monica, but most members swim at Westwood.

The 300-member club has collected endorsements from some of the biggest names in the Los Angeles swimming community, including former Olympic swimming coach Ron Ballatore and Olympic gold medalists Mark Spitz and Steve Lundquist. The swimmers regard the proposal as a potentially devastating blow to the sport, which has traditionally relied on public facilities for training.

“We really don’t know why we are being treated like second-class citizens,” said Bonnie Adair, a West Los Angeles attorney who co-founded the club in 1979 while a student at Loyola Law School. “Our swimmers are saying they need more than Recreation and Parks can offer.”

Department of Recreation and Parks officials tried to evict the club from the pool in October after a dispute erupted over pool fees the group owed the city. Department officials said they learned for the first time during the dispute that the club had a near monopoly on lanes during peak morning, noon and evening hours.

Club members insisted the department had approved the arrangement from the beginning and appealed to Mayor Tom Bradley, who personally stepped in to prevent the eviction. “We intervened to say, ‘Look, don’t change the policy without having some discussions about it,’ ” said Wendy Greuel, Bradley’s liaison to the Recreation and Parks Department.

The club has remained at the pool ever since.

Under an arrangement worked out with former pool manager Kerron Cozens, the club has had exclusive use of all 10 lanes at the pool during weekdays from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., seven lanes from 6 to 8 a.m., and six lanes for an hour around noon. In recent months, the group has shared several lanes with another private club during morning workouts at the insistence of the department.

Rasco, the department’s assistant general manager, said former pool manager Cozens was not authorized to make such an arrangement with the club. Cozens also apparently waived pool fees for the club for five months last year in exchange for coaching assistance for city-run swimming classes.

Cozens, who also worked part time for the club as a coach in Santa Monica, resigned as pool manager in October shortly after the department discovered the deal, Rasco said. The club last month paid more than $7,200 in fees to the city for the disputed period, although it did so under protest, citing the agreement with Cozens. Cozens could not be reached for comment.

Members of the club, who pay $45 in monthly dues, said the group is not out to make money but to provide high-level training and competitive workouts. They said dues pay for coaches’ salaries, pool fees, swim meets, travel and other expenses. The club pays the city 75 cents each time a member uses the pool. The general public pays $1 per visit, although frequent-user passes are cheaper.

“We offer an alternative for adults who want to swim under an organized program,” said Clay Evans, the club’s co-founder, who earns $2,500 a month as its head coach. “It is not for everyone, but it is for a good percentage of the people who use that pool. And these people are taxpayers too.”

Evans, an Olympic silver medalist in swimming from Canada, described the proposed citywide pool restrictions as “vindictive” and said the Recreation and Parks Department staff is jealous of his successful program. He disputed claims that swimmers have been turned away from the pool because the club monopolizes lanes.