San Marino Faces Hard Choices : Planning: A yearlong study recommends a strategy to combat new problems that may disturb the city’s exclusive allure.

Financially strapped schools, a rapidly changing ethnic makeup, traffic, drugs: The problems facing this haven of high incomes and luxury homes are much the same as those of its less affluent neighbors.

And a Strategic Planning Committee that has studied life in San Marino for the past year has recommended solutions both ordinary and esoteric.

For example, to attract restaurants--for the convenience of residents as well as sales-tax revenue--city leaders should reverse the longstanding policy forbidding sale of alcoholic beverages. To bolster enrollment in the public schools, they should consider the annexation of nearby county areas.

And to get senior citizens involved with schools? A quintessentially San Marinan solution: a “Platinum Card” allowing free admission to school games and plays.

These conclusions were in a recently released planning committee report that assessed nine sectors of community life. The report pointed out that city officials face hard choices in how to maintain the city’s exclusive, single-family residential makeup.

The 127 volunteer committee members supported some controversial changes. For example, the report advocated completion of the 710 Freeway extension, which would represent a major shift in San Marino’s neutral, Switzerland-like pose in the debate between warring neighbors, freeway advocate Alhambra and freeway opponent South Pasadena.

“We have something wonderful and unique here,” said Barbara L. Maxwell, a lawyer and head of the Strategic Planning Committee. “It’s definitely worth preserving. But it’s not going to happen by magic. If we don’t take some action, we’re not going to have the same city that we have now.”

Maxwell said the consensus among nine subcommittees was that “everyone wanted to keep San Marino pretty much the same as it always has been. But that’s not going to be easy to do--for financial reasons.”

The recommendations are designed to shape public policy between now and 2013, the year of the community’s centennial. The City Council officially accepted the report last week, but council members said they will need time to study it before discussing its recommendations. Copies will be mailed to all households and businesses in the city next week.

While calling it a “really fine report,” Mayor Suzanne Crowell said city officials were “proceeding cautiously. I don’t think we’re ready to make any big pronouncement on anything.”

Vice Mayor Eugene Dryden said: “We now have a very good challenge to figure out how to go through and implement” the recommendations. But, he said, “we will not necessarily take their recommendations verbatim.”

As an example, he said, “whether we come out in favor of the 710 Freeway or not remains to be seen.”

On the emotional annexation issue, the subcommittee studying it concluded that adding residents of certain neighborhoods might help to bolster the declining enrollment and coffers of the city’s school system.

The report suggested that “thorough consideration” be given to annexation of nearby county neighborhoods. One of two county areas where residents are petitioning to be annexed to San Marino contains apartments, not allowed under San Marino zoning.

The report was adamant that zoning laws, which now allow only single-family residences in the city, should not be changed. But Maxwell said it “didn’t close the door” on taking in an area with apartments, perhaps through “grandfathering,” which would allow duplexes or apartments only where they already exist in an area to be annexed.

“There must be overriding benefit to the city in order to justify such action,” the report said. Such a benefit could include a financial one, it suggested.

In the education section, the report went into great detail about financing of the public schools. The city, the report urged, should take steps to solicit new families with children who will attend the public schools as a way to stabilize enrollments, which have declined in recent years. It did not specify how such solicitation should be done.

Addressing social problems, the education subcommittee lamented “the countless unsupervised teen-age parties and the apparent lack of parental unity in approaching these problems.” And, the report said, the city has a drug problem.

As a tactic to educate the community about alcohol and drug abuse, a subcommittee proposed that the city sponsor quarterly Town Hall-style meetings with young people, parents and police officials.

The subcommittee also identified child care as a pressing issue and recommended that city officials consider changing zoning to allow “a quality commercial child-care provider” in San Marino.

Likewise, the subcommittee identified ethnic issues as a potential problem in the schools, where 47% of the students are of Asian ancestry, many of them or their parents new immigrants. “Our community could become polarized by ethnic differences,” the report said, urging the city Recreation Department to offer adult classes in English for non-native speakers.

The core committee that oversaw the report included, besides Maxwell, the chief executive officer of an electronics firm, a real estate broker, a contractor, the president of an investment management firm, two former teachers and two engineers. Community involvement of these ranged from the San Marino Chinese Club to the Tournament of Roses Assn., Little League and the PTA.

PLANNING RECOMMENDATIONS Recommendations of the San Marino Strategic Planning Committee:

EDUCATION

Seek ways to improve teacher and administrator salaries in the San Marino Unified School District

Establish a “Platinum Card” that gives senior citizens free admission to all school sporting events, dramatic productions and other programs

Attract new families with children who will attend public schools

Encourage established social events among ethnic groups and develop new activities.

TRANSPORTATION

Support 710 Freeway extension project.

COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT

To attract desirable restaurants, the planning commission should study allowing sale of alcoholic beverages.

ANNEXATION

Consider thoroughly annexing adjacent county areas.