Handball Players Lose Park Courts : Port Hueneme: Complaints from neighbors lead to the demolition. City will pay half the tab to relocate the facilities.

At a cost of $5,800, the city of Port Hueneme began demolishing itsonly outdoor handball courts Tuesday, planning to rebuild them barely 100 feet away--at twice that cost.

For more than a decade, the Moranda Park courts attracted hundreds of competitive players, a few national junior champions among them. But the City Council last month yielded to complaints from beach-area homeowners who grew intolerant of beer bottles tossed on their lawns, drunken spectators urinating in public and blaring music from boom boxes and cruising cars.

“They’ve abused the privilege of using the park,” said Eve Roberts, 48, a neighbor on San Miguel Circle. “Most of the users are from Oxnard. The city should not support something for people from outside the area.”

Some players and others, however, attacked the decision to demolish a public amenity, used primarily by Latinos, to appease the owners of nearby residences.

“I think there is an element of racism with some people,” said Beverly Full, a retired schoolteacher and neighbor who opposed the demolition. “It just makes me mad that my taxes are going to go to bulldozing a perfectly good facility that’s used all the time.”

“These people see a bunch of Latinos who they associate with gangs and violence, and they don’t see the good side of this for our community,” said Manuel Lopez, 23, of Port Hueneme. “It’s either this or drugs and street gangs for some kids.”

The two three-walled courts were located on the 13-year-old park’s perimeter, next to railroad tracks and two newer housing developments. While several nearby beach-area subdivisions are gated, the homes whose owners complained the loudest are on public streets.

The City Council rejected the recommendation of its Recreation and Fine Arts Commission, which voted 3 to 2 to regulate playing hours by erecting a fence around the courts like those surrounding eight adjacent tennis courts.

As a concession to the handball players, the council agreed to pay half of the estimated $10,000 to $15,000 cost of rebuilding the courts in the middle of the park. The players will have to raise the other half.

“As long as they stayed where they are, the noise would continue,” Mayor Orvene Carpenter said. “The only thing a fence would do would be to regulate the time people would be playing.”

In favoring demolition, the council chose one of the most drastic of seven alternatives presented by city Recreation and Community Services Director Brady Cherry.

The alternatives ranged from running a $60 steel cable across the courts to close them at night, to condemning them and using the walls to build a storage building.

Both the mayor and Cherry, who advocated the demolition, said race played no part in their decisions.

“With all due respect, the issue is not about who the players are or where they live, but about appropriate public behavior,” Cherry said. “I don’t want the handball players to be on the losing end of this. That’s why I’m trying to help them with fund-raising efforts.”

The courts, built in 1978, predated construction of the surrounding homes. Full said neighbors began complaining as soon as they moved in, “just like when people move next to an airport and then want the airport moved.”

But the 1990 master plan for the city’s parks called for moving the courts, based on a consultant’s finding that they were poorly situated.

“Whoever designed the park made a mistake,” said Frank McElfish, 43, an engineer whose home is closest to the courts. “All my neighbors that I talked to support relocation in the park. If there were racism behind it, I don’t think that would be the case.”

The courts nearly fell to a hydraulic hammer and stonecutter’s saw in 1984, spared only by agreement from several regular players to police the area. The few other outdoor court options in western Ventura County are in Ventura and in Oxnard’s La Colonia, which several players said they avoid because gangs stake out that park.

Police Chief Bob Anderson confirmed that there have never been any violent incidents at the Moranda Park courts. Officers, however, have been repeatedly summoned for nuisance calls, he said.

“It’s not been anything serious,” Anderson said. “But by the same token, it has been a problem for people living nearby.”

Sergio Diaz, who plays at the courts four days a week, said few players abused their court privileges and that the drinking and public urinating occurred far less often than neighbors contended.

“People are always drinking in parks, and the police do their best to control it,” said Diaz, 24, a computer industry machinist from Oxnard. “It’s never been that bad.”

Several national champions trained at the Moranda courts in recent years. Among them were Armando Magallanes, 14, of Oxnard, a winner of the U. S. Handball Assn. indoor 11-and-under title; Craig Dehnert, 21, a former resident of condominiums near the park, who is now ranked 12th among professionals nationwide, and Jason Castro, 16, of Oxnard, a three-time national youth champion who was a finalist in the 15-and-under world championships in Phoenix in February.

Paul Godina, who coached all three players, and fellow handball enthusiast Joe Garcia will work with Cherry to try to raise the matching funds for new courts.

Still, many players were upset that a fixture of their childhoods is being removed.

“It will break my heart to see these courts come down,” said Lopez, who has frequented the courts since age 10 and now brings his nieces and nephews to play. “It will be great if the council holds to its promise, but they could always say they’re short of money. Then we lose out.”