‘Save Our Parks’ Measure Gets Rival : Development: Huntington Beach City Council backs an initiative to allow action without a citywide vote.

Despite the protests of some environmental and citizens’ groups, the City Council on Friday voted 4 to 2 to put a measure on the Nov. 6 ballot that would rival another initiative by Save Our Parks.

The Save Our Parks measure would forbid the city from selling or leasing parkland or beach land without a citywide vote. The rival measure approved by the council majority would restrict sales but would still allow leasing of parkland or beach land without a citywide referendum.

Opponents charged that the City Council was acting at the behest of developers, including the Huntington Beach Co. They argued that developers covet the city’s beaches as prime land to be leased for commercial buildings.

“The beach is at stake--that’s your ultimate goal,” Diane Easterling, a Huntington Beach resident, told the council. “You want our beaches so badly you would do anything to get them.”

Opponents referred to the controversial Pierside Village project, a proposed complex of restaurants to be built on bluffs next to the Municipal Pier. Critics argue that the project would block ocean views.

Pierside Village is strongly backed by Mayor Thomas J. Mays and Councilmen Wes Bannister, John Erskine and Jim Silva, who voted Friday to place the rival parks-beaches measure on the ballot.

The four council members denied accusations that they championed the new initiative to promote any projects or agendas. They said the new measure is needed because the Save Our Parks initiative is flawed and overly restrictive.

Those who spoke in support of the council-approved measure included Tom Van Tuyl, president of the Huntington Beach-Fountain Valley Board of Realtors. Van Tuyl said the Save Our Parks initiative would be “harmful to the community” because it would require “political campaigns and rivalry between neighbors to gain approval for neighborhood park improvements.”

The council voted after almost two hours of heated public testimony. Councilwoman Grace Winchell and Councilman Peter M. Green, who usually support environmental and slow-growth causes, voted against putting the measure on the ballot. Councilman Don MacAllister was absent.

Winchell said she strongly supports the Save Our Parks initiative and that she considered the rival measure “a grasp for power” by the council majority.

Green said he was concerned because an attorney for the Huntington Beach Co., the city’s biggest private landowner and a major contributor to political campaigns, had helped draft the language for the rival measure.

Bannister contended, however, that there was no direct connection between the rival ballot measure and the Huntington Beach Co. He said the new measure was needed as an alternative because the Save Our Parks initiative might necessitate frequent citywide votes for park improvements. “We could be running special elections on a monthly basis,” he said.

In addition to forbidding sale or lease of parks or beaches without a citywide vote, the Save Our Parks initiative would not allow any new construction in existing parks costing more than $100,000 or exceeding 3,000 square feet of space unless approved by a citywide vote.