Critics Lash City Over Horse Stable : Recreation: They claim that the council’s failure to sign a proposed contract to reduce the rent at the equestrian center near Griffith Park could doom the financially troubled complex.

Los Angeles Equestrian Center executives and horse owners who use the city-owned stable lashed out at the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday for failing to sign a contract that they say would save the financially troubled complex.

The horse owners, including actor William Shatner, and LAEC Inc., the private company that operates the Equestrian Center north of Griffith Park, said that city inaction on a proposed contract that would reduce the operator’s rent is driving that company close to bankruptcy.

They said they called Tuesday’s news conference as a last-ditch attempt to get the City Council to act.

“The media is the court of last resort,” said Shatner, a horse owner better known as Capt. James Kirk of the “Star Trek” TV series and films.

Shatner was angry because a City Council committee has held up approval of a contract written two years ago that would cut the LAEC’s rent to $350,000 for a five-year period beginning in 1990.

The company pays about $300,000 each year under the current contract, which calls for the city to receive 5.5% of gross revenues, said General Manager Kenneth Mowry. The company would receive a refund for excess rent already paid if the proposed contract is approved.

Horse owners like the 44-acre site, which was used for equestrian events in the 1984 Olympics, because of its lavish facilities. Many said they fear that it may shut down because no private company operating the facility has ever turned a profit.

LAEC has lost about $250,000 since it took over the center in May, 1990, Mowry said. It paid $3.6 million for the facility, built in the late 1970s for more than $12 million. The city owns the land, and LAEC owns all of the facilities.

Mowry said his company was promised a temporary reduction in rent by the city when it agreed to buy the concession. The center had gone from a previous owner, Albert Garcia, who went bankrupt, to Gibraltar Savings & Loan, which also went bankrupt, to the federal Resolution Trust Corp., which sold it to LAEC.

Mowry raised the specter that his company may follow the others into bankruptcy if the city does not act soon.

“The LAEC cannot continue to operate at current levels under the terms of the existing agreement,” Mowry said. The center “can no longer afford to continue waiting for the city to honor the promises made more than two years ago.”

The existing contract is impractical and obsolete, Mowry said. For example, it allows only 200 horses to be boarded there, although the facility could accommodate about 700. Currently about 500 horses are boarded there and if a new contract is not approved shortly, most of them will have to evicted to comply with the existing terms, Mowry said.

Much of the criticism was focused on Councilman Joel Wachs, who demanded an audit of the center last year when its proposed contract went before the City Council committee he chairs.

On Tuesday, Wachs criticized the company’s tactics, which include hiring a public relations firm and holding a news conference with celebrities who board their horses there. Television actors Patrick Duffy (“Dallas”) and Loretta Swit (“MASH”) were also scheduled to be at the press conference but did not attend.

“Their attitude is rather incredible,” Wachs said in a telephone interview. “The city is not in the habit of giving away money to private enterprise. I’ve got to look after the city’s treasury.”

Wachs said the city would probably approve an agreement with the company but stressed the need to thoroughly review any contract--especially one that proposes cutting city revenues at a time of serious money shortage. He said his committee was scheduled to discuss the audit’s results in September.

“There’s no way we’re just going to rubber-stamp this,” Wachs said.

Mowry defended his company’s tactics, saying they were born of frustration and that a public relations campaign would probably be more effective than a lawsuit.

“Suing City Hall is a very difficult route and very expensive,” said Mowry, adding that a lawsuit was “an alternative of last resort.”