SAN CLEMENTE : Running of Softball Park Up in the Air

The leader of a group that developed a $1-million softball complex andthen lost it because of financial problems may be asked by the City Council today to operate the San Clemente park for a year.

The interim agreement would give the city time to decide whether it should take over the 18 leagues and 127 teams that use the Richard T. Steed Memorial Park or hire a permanent operator to run the program, said Bruce Wegener, parks and recreation director.

Steve Boehm, a partner with South Coast Sports Enterprises, the group that developed the four-field complex last summer, was considered “the only person who had knowledge of the current league operation, and staff felt he could be trusted,” Wegener told the council in a memo last week. “He had run past softball programs with the city for a number of years.”

The fields were constructed on park land owned by the city and leased on a long-term basis to South Coast Sports, and the collaboration was hailed by city officials as the first partnership of its kind in Southern California.

But within a few months of the softball park’s opening in June, 1989, the city began getting complaints from subcontractors who claimed they were never paid.

When the contractors began suing the city, the council took steps last January to void its lease with South Coast Sports.

The sports management firm countered by filing for bankruptcy to block the takeover by the city and win time to search for financing. The company never found a major backer and in May, a bankruptcy judge voided their contract, handing the nearly developed softball complex to the city.

Boehm, who has operated leagues in San Clemente and other Orange County cities in the past, was asked to run the softball program through June 30.

Under the yearlong agreement to be considered by the council, Boehm would earn 58% of league fees charged to softball teams, or about $150,000 a year.

Wegener estimated the city could lose about $11,000 during the transition period. But that figure includes $5,000 in damage done by vandals last month and $20,000 to stabilize slopes near the softball fields.