Park Fitness Staff Laid Off as Carson Cuts 15 City Jobs : Budget: Five months into the fiscal year, Carson is still trying to balance its books. The latest round of cuts hit the parks department hardest.

Carson laid off 15 recently hired workers last week, most of them from the Parks and Recreation Department, including three fitness trainers who run the plush Veterans Park sports complex.

A total of eight parks workers were among those terminated according to a “last in, first out” directive approved by the City Council on Tuesday. The council has been considering spending cuts since April to balance the city budget.

Most of the parks employees said they will lobby this weekend for support from Carson residents who have jammed the council chamber in the past to protest proposed parks cutbacks.

The rest of the layoffs were spread among other city departments, an official said.

On Tuesday--almost five months into the fiscal year--the City Council will continue its efforts to draw up a final budget. Last week the council proposed a freeze on wages and benefits for city employees. Whether the employees’ unions agree to the freeze will determine whether there will be additional layoffs, city officials said.

Veterans Park was controversial long before it opened in June. Recently critics have said the park, like the Parks and Recreation Department itself, is too expensive to operate. Its sports complex, which operates as a membership fitness club, was hit especially hard by the layoffs.

The manager of the facility, Jackie Crimi, the fitness director, Cindy Ward, and the assistant director, Jay Waldren, all got layoff notices Thursday. All had been recruited for the jobs they took this summer.

Crimi said it was a joke to include her job in cuts that were made on the basis of seniority. “This is going to do nothing to solve their budget problems,” she said.

Instead, Crimi said, the cuts threaten the health club’s viability by reducing its ability to attract new members, the key to generating revenue.

The employees who took their places are not trained to run the facility, know nothing about sales and marketing, and are not professional fitness trainers, she said.

Crimi, who has a master’s degree in physiology from Cal State Long Beach and has worked in sales and marketing at other health clubs, said: “The people (the city) has stuck in there have no idea what they are doing. . . . I’m the one who created (the club) from the ground up.”

Crimi also claimed that uncertainty about whether the city will continue to operate the complex has caused some current members to demand a refund.

City Administrator Jack Smith would not return phone calls Thursday and Friday. Other city officials declined comment.

However, Councilwoman Juanita McDonald said that although she opposes layoffs, she supports the decision to include the fitness directors in the dismissals if they must be made. Her objection, she said, was to the manner in which the dismissals were implemented.

“I am concerned that there wasn’t sufficient notice given” and that there was no transition period for replacements to be trained, McDonald said.

In its first five months of operation, the park has generated more than $100,000 in fees, well ahead of a projection of $156,000 for the entire year, parks officials said.

Crimi said the sports complex has about 700 paid, active memberships. The membership retention rate is 92%.

The 38,000-square-foot sports complex includes a multipurpose gymnasium, a gymnastics and aerobics center and a weight room. The city charges residents $15 to $40 a month to use the facilities. Non-residents pay twice as much.

Originally, the three trainers were to be spared from the parks department cuts, but longtime employees and residents objected to giving the three new employees preferential treatment.

Ironically, the city is considering asking an outside company to run the fitness center. If that happens, the employees who have been moved into those jobs might face layoffs or transfers in turn.