Economic Tides Hurt Pier Fund-Raisers : Donations: Volunteers say they came up $2 million short of what is needed for the Huntington Beach structure. They blame the recession and competing fund drives.

Nobody said it would be easy.

But city officials and volunteer fund-raisers on Tuesday night said they never expected all the problems that emerged as they tried to raise money for a new pier. Among other things, the fund-raising began just as the national recession set in.

“I never got so tired in my life of hearing the word ‘no,’ ” said Robert L. Mayer, co-chairman of the citizens’ group that tried to raise $2.5 million in private donations for the pier. “But we didn’t give up.”

Mayer and other fund-raisers told the City Council on Tuesday night that they had raised about $1.4 million. The fund-raisers made the formal report as they concluded their two-year effort.

“I wish we could say we met our goal,” Mayer added.

But Councilman Peter M. Green and other council members praised the effort.

“Even if there hadn’t been a recession, you had a very difficult task,” Green told the fund-raisers.

Nonetheless, city officials said, the bottom line is that Huntington Beach is still about $2 million short of the basic $11.4 million cost of the pier. Less money than expected came in from other sources as well.

In addition to the $2-million shortfall for the basic pier structure, the city needs an additional $1.3 million to construct buildings on the pier, including a new lifeguard tower.

“The council will now have to decide where that money is coming from,” said City Administrator Michael T. Uberuaga in an interview. “The staff will be coming back to the council later this year with choices for them to make.”

Uberuaga said there will be no fiscal calamity for the city. “We have money available in other funds that we can borrow from,” he said. “Later, that money can be paid back.”

The pier fund-raising group was called the Landmark Campaign. Several other smaller volunteer groups also helped raise private money for the pier. Efforts ranged from selling T-shirts and calendars to promising donors of $100,000 that a special kiosk on the pier would be named in their honor.

Among problems the pier fund-raisers encountered were competing fund drives by other charitable groups. Green said another problem was overcoming residents’ skepticism.

“People like to think that their taxes take care of everything,” Green said. The public was not easily persuaded to give money to public building projects.

The old city pier, built in 1914, was closed in 1988 after severe storm damage. It was torn down in the fall of 1990, and construction of the new pier began simultaneously.

The new pier is close to being finished on schedule. Its original target date was this month; it is now set for completion in June. The contractor, Riedel International Inc. of Portland, Ore., has experienced severe financial problems during the recession, but Riedel nonetheless has continued the pier construction without a halt, city officials said.

Councilman Earle Robitaille, in thanking the pier fund-raisers on Tuesday night, said: “You took on a very thankless job in a very terrible (economic) time in our history.”

Former Mayor Ron Shenkman, who was one of the chief fund-raisers, agreed that the timing was not good.

“We would have made the goal of $2.5 million in any kind of a reasonable economy,” Shenkman said.