Park District Budget Becomes Campaign Issue : Dana Point: Little-known Capistrano Bay board’s unusual autonomy and relative riches raise eyebrows.

They used to be an obscure group that met at each other’s homes, in garages, at elementary schools, anywhere they could find a room.

Today, the Capistrano Bay Park and Recreation District, though still anonymous to most of the community, has left the garages for a roomy, $1.4-million community center. And while most government agencies are scraping to make ends meet, this once-sleepy board, the only one of its kind in the county, is in the largest expansion mode of its 27-year history.

Its directors now oversee a $5.5-million annual budget. Money in district coffers has quadrupled in the last four years and is expected to nearly double in the next three, largely because the agency’s boundaries were expanded in 1989 to include a cash cow: the city’s posh Monarch Beach district.

With its newfound riches, the district this month approved spending $6 million for new parkland in this six-square-mile coastal city.

“I’m not sure we will be able to spend all the money in our budget this year,” said Dana Point architect Lynn J. Muir, a founding director who continues to serve on the board and remembers the minuscule budgets of the past.

But the district and its spending habits could become issues in the June 2 City Council election.

Critics argue that electing an autonomous board of directors to oversee parks and recreation is an anomaly, an old-fashioned concept that made sense in the decades before cityhood, back when Dana Point was more rural and remote.

They also say it represents another layer of bureaucracy that would be more efficient if brought under the auspices of the City Council, as in most cities.

“I think the city and the park district would be remiss if they didn’t at least take a look at putting them together,” City Councilwoman Eileen Krause said. “I’m not saying the people at the park district are not doing a good job because they are. But I think we should study the idea to see if it makes financial sense.”

Others question some park board decisions, such as a recent $900,000 outlay for enhancing a road median on Street of the Golden Lantern and approval of insurance and medical benefits for themselves.

“That’s a lot of money to spend on a median,” said Ernie Nelson, an engineer and City Council candidate who is running along with two council incumbents. “A lot of us in town believe the money could be spent elsewhere. Even people at the district agree that Dana Point is about 40 acres short of park space.”

“Spending that kind of money in today’s economy is incredibly grandiose,” Krause said. “It’s outrageous.”

District administrator David Lewis, who is given credit for building the city’s multifaceted recreation program, argued that district contributions to the city eclipse problems that have cropped up.

“In terms of the benefits to the community, I definitely think the pros outweigh the cons,” he said. “The City Council is concerned with such things as policies, planning, zoning and public works. If parks and recreation was lumped in too, how much of the council time would really go to park and recreation issues? At the park district, our board gives 100% of the time to those issues.”

Lewis also argued that the district has a far more stable budget than the city. As a result, park and recreation activities never get shortchanged.

“The biggest problem of a city every year is the battle of the budget,” he said. “A city budget--which relies on sales taxes, gas taxes and hotel taxes--fluctuates with the economy, meaning it’s up and down and a scramble every year. Our tax source is property tax, which is very consistent, even in bad times.”

There has been just one such bad time for the district since it was created in 1965, and it had nothing to do with property taxes. In 1982, the district hit the headlines when its administrator was caught dipping into the till for $6,500 to buy herself a new Corvette.

Lewis, who was hired after the scandal from a park district in Mendocino County, said he arrived to find what one might expect in a small, anonymous bureaucracy that is accountable to no one: lax bookkeeping and questionable policies.

Since then, Lewis said, he has tightened accounting practices and built an agency that handles a wide menu of services.

Along with running varied sports, cultural and service programs, the board oversees and maintains 15 parks totaling 47 acres and many of the city’s street medians, parkways and slopes. The district, one of 90 independent park agencies in the state, is also responsible for city street sweeping and tree trimming.

The idea of bringing the district under the City Council was first considered when a grass-roots group began its drive for cityhood in the late 1980s, recalled City Councilwoman Judy Curreri, a defender of the district. But the idea was cast aside after consulting with the community, said Curreri, who left the park board in 1988 to be elected to the City Council and be chosen Dana Point’s first mayor.

“People would tell us they liked the idea of a direct election of two different bodies,” she said. “We also went to other cities and found out that the park and recreation department was often the first place a budget gets cut.”

Curreri said Dana Point “has plenty of business to take care of without adding parks and recreation.”

Councilwoman Karen Lloreda agreed but had some reservations about recent park decisions, including the board’s vote to approve insurance benefits for its five members. That caused a major local flap, even among board members.

“I would have no problem offering the directors insurance at the group rate, along with the rest of the district employees, but not at the district expense,” Lloreda said. “There is such an enormous frustration in this country, particularly regarding health insurance that when they (voters) see something like this, it creates anger.”

She added that the $900,000 tab for the 1 1/2-mile street median landscaping project is something the council “might choke a little on. . . . That’s extremely expensive.”

The park board approved a design for that project, which will include more than 300 palm trees and other lush vegetation, earlier this month.