Public’s Voice to Be Heard on Bonelli Park : Development: A citizens committee will be appointed to meet with county officials to revise the park’s master plan. Critics say the group is unnecessary.

To broaden public participation in the embattled efforts to revise development plans for Frank G. Bonelli Regional Park, a citizens advisory committee will be appointed to meet with county officials.

The five-city joint powers authority, which oversees funds for development of the park, voted last Thursday in San Dimas to establish the committee, which will begin meeting with the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation to draft a revision to the park’s 22-year-old master plan.

Formation of the committee did not immediately appease critics of a past county proposal to allow commercial development in the 1,976-acre park.

San Dimas City Council member Denis Bertone, co-chairman of the Coalition to Preserve Bonelli Park, said he doubted that the committee is necessary.

“If they want to know what the public thinks, they can go back and look at their records,” Bertone said.

But James Park, chief of the county’s planning division, said the citizens group will be similar to committees for regional parks in Culver City and the Fairfax District in Los Angeles.

The advisory group will consist of two members from each city in the joint powers authority and representatives of conservation groups such as the Audubon Society and the Sierra Club, Park said. The authority voted to meet again in 45 days to draw up a list of names from which the county will appoint 25 to 35 members.

The advisory committee will meet with county staff and report back to the authority as a subcommittee. Park said the authority, formed in the 1970s to distribute park development funds, is not directly involved in planning, but must be consulted on all projects in the park.

Bonelli Park lies mostly in San Dimas, but spreads into Pomona and La Verne. Covina and Glendora, though not contiguous with the park, are also members of the five-city authority.

The county proposed extensive commercial development of the park in 1986, with plans for a lodge, cabin complex and hillside restaurant. Since then, residents have written letters of opposition and spoken at city and county public meetings. In 1988, the Coalition to Preserve Bonelli Park sued the county, claiming that park officials violated state law by soliciting proposals from developers without first completing an environmental impact report.

Two years ago, the county revised the plans, scaling back the lodge and cabin complex but adding an expansion to Raging Waters, a water amusement park located inside Bonelli Park.

Because of public opposition, however, the plan never went before the Board of Supervisors for approval.