Panel Declares Ball Field a Nuisance : Sylmar: The action by an L.A. zoning appeals board sets the stage for another hearing and possible revocation of baseball league’s permit.

Overriding the entreaties of a parade of San Fernando Valley political figures, a Los Angeles city zoning panel voted 3 to 1 Tuesday to declare a Sylmar baseball field used by children and teen-agers a public nuisance.

Siding with unhappy neighbors of the field, the Board of Zoning Appeals set the stage for another hearing, at which it could revoke the land-use permit that allows the Sylmar Independent Baseball League to have eight baseball diamonds on a 22-acre site it owns.

A revocation hearing, however, could be initiated only if city zoning officials receive new evidence that, despite Tuesday’s warning declaration, the league continues to ignore the conditions of its permit.

Since 1988, the league has operated under a permit that imposes a series of conditions designed mainly to control noise and traffic impacts on the neighborhood.

But neighbors and Daniel Greene, city zoning administrator, told the board that the league has regularly failed to comply with the city rules.

During the three-hour hearing, the league produced an impressive array of speakers in support of its fight to block both the finding that it was operating a public nuisance and the imposition of additional controls on its operation.

Among the new conditions ordered Tuesday was a requirement that the league shut down an illegal ninth baseball diamond and that it expel members who violate zoning rules.

The blue-chip support for the league included an aide to state Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Panorama City), a candidate for mayor; Richard Alarcon, Mayor Tom Bradley’s liaison to the Valley and a candidate for the seat of retiring Councilman Ernani Bernardi; Anne Finn, another candidate for Bernardi’s seat; David Mays, Bernardi’s chief deputy, and an aide to Councilman Hal Bernson.

Time and again, the supporters said the league was providing a public service, a healthy outlet for young people and should not be punished for the bad habits of a few of its members who failed to obey rules on parking and noise.

The league is “in no way, shape or form a public nuisance,” Alarcon said, as he pledged the use of funds from a United Way group of which he is chairman to hire arbiters to mediate the dispute between the league and a handful of neighbors on Gridley Street.

Mays said the league had wrought “a miracle” by transforming the 22-acre site from a weed-choked lot into a public asset and warned the board that it made no sense to let the “most sensitive of residents” jeopardize the league’s program.

But the 1,000-member league’s display of political firepower apparently backfired.

“Shame on you,” board member Ilene Olansky upbraided the league’s representatives, led by its former president, Dick Jackson.

“I think there’s a sort of arrogance here, unworthy of a nonprofit organization,” Olansky said. When the city imposed conditions and the neighbors complained, Olansky said the league’s attitude was “in your face--we’ve got the power.”

“You remind me of a developer . . . you feel omnipotent.”

Although she eventually voted to support them, Chairwoman Katherine Diamond warned the homeowners not to expect that the city will “nit-pick the league” at some future revocation hearing and demand total compliance with every condition.

A good-faith effort to comply would be enough to satisfy her, Diamond said. “We’re not looking for perfection,” she said.

Poring over a log recording illegal parking by league members’ cars in front of neighbor Pamela Thoreson’s house, Olansky at one point asked Thoreson if she was not obsessed by the league’s infractions.

“Obsessed?” Thoreson replied. “Not when I have a conditional-use permit in my hand that says none of this should be happening. Trust me. I have four children and a house to remodel. I wish I didn’t have to do this.”

Under the conditions imposed Tuesday, which are in addition to others imposed in 1988, the league must station traffic monitors on Gridley Street to prevent members from parking there, will be allowed to use a public-address system only twice a year--at the league opening ceremony in March and closing ceremony in July--and will have to remove graffiti on its property within a week of its appearance.

League officials said no decision has been made whether to appeal the zoning board’s ruling to the City Council.