Parks Panel Rejects Plea for Nature Program

Environmental activists made an unsuccessful attempt Monday to channel $50,000, from the millions spent by teen-agers on miniature golf and video games in the Sepulveda Basin, to a program to teach the youths about nature in the basin.

By a 3-0 vote, the Los Angeles Board of Recreation and Park Commissioners voted to seek new bids to run the entertainment concession in the basin’s city park, which brings in $3 million a year to the present operator. But the board rejected a request that a share of the city’s fees be used to fund wildlife educational programs and tours of the basin’s natural areas.

Later, Jill Swift, a veteran Sierra Club activist, complained that the board is not investing in the education of youth but is content to “milk them at the slot machines”--a reference to the fact that young people heavily patronize the city’s franchise complex, which includes three 18-hole miniature golf courses and more than 140 arcade games.

An education program would “be an offset” to the impact of the amusement parks on young people, Swift said in an interview outside the board’s meeting room.

Also pressing for funding for the proposed wildlife education program, which would have been run by the Topanga-Las Virgenes Resource Conservation District, was Sandy Wohlgemuth, an Audubon Society representative.

“The commission needs to show the children that they are standing behind them,” added Nancy Helsley, a director of the resource conservation district, a state agency whose jurisdiction includes the 2,100-acre publicly owned basin and that runs award-winning environmental science programs at Malibu Lagoon and several mountain parks.

Helsley said an education program in the basin, because of its central location at the intersection of the San Diego and Ventura Freeways, could reach as many as 10,000 students annually.

Swift, a former city parks commissioner, said the environmentalists have asked Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles), whose district includes the basin, to help them obtain a share of the city’s franchise fees for the program.

The city leases its basin parkland facilities, including two golf courses and baseball diamonds, from the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Beilenson could influence the city by working through the corps, a federal agency, Swift said.

Moreover, the corps must approve the city’s proposed documents requesting bids before they can be advertised.

The groups’ request has also been supported by City Council members Joy Picus and Marvin Braude, who represent the area around the basin.

But Pete Echeverria, a top official with the city attorney’s office, said he doubted whether it would be legal for the commission to modify the bid documents to state that the bidders would pay a portion of their franchise fees directly to the operators of the proposed education program.

The city’s income from the franchises must go to the city’s general fund, not for the benefit of a third party, Echeverria said.

The board Monday began anew the process of soliciting bids to run the Sepulveda Basin franchise after a lengthy controversy. The board decided Dec. 8 to reject all five of the original bids.

The City Council subsequently invoked its power under the City Charter to review the board’s action, which some contended would result in a loss of city revenues. The council had the authority to override the board and directly award the bid to one of the five firms, if it acted within 21 days.

But the council members, after lengthy debate, were unable to take any action within the allotted time, thus failing to overturn the board’s decision to ask for new bids.