R.P.V. Sacrifices Recreation Programs to Cut Deficit : Budget: Facing $2 million of red ink, the City Council votes to reduce staff and eliminate classes for children and adults. One council member says only a tax increase will solve the crisis.

Strapped for income and facing a $2-million budget deficit, the Rancho Palos Verdes City Council has resorted to deep cuts in the city’s popular parks and recreation programs.

Meeting Tuesday, the council voted 4 to 1 to eliminate many programs and cut the recreation department staff in half, eliminating four positions, including the $60,000-a-year parks and recreation director’s job.

The cuts take effect July 1, the beginning of the 1993-94 budget year. Officials said the action will eliminate nearly 100 classes for youngsters and adults, from finger painting to art, dance and sewing.

By reducing the staff, closing most of the programs that don’t pay for themselves and juggling administrative costs, the council hopes to eliminate $116,000 a year in departmental costs. The city’s parks will remain open but the council voted to stop subsidizing special events such as the July 4th celebration, an annual antique car show and summer concerts in the parks.

The summer aquatics program, which offers swimming lessons to youngsters, was saved, but only after Marymount College offered to run it.

Councilwoman Jacki Bacharach cast the lone negative vote, arguing that cuts won’t even come close to solving the city’s financial problems. Voting to make the cuts were Mayor Susan Brooks and Councilmen Steve Kuykendall, Robert E. Ryan and John McTaggert.

Bacharach said only a tax increase of some kind would bail the city out.

“If this would solve the problem, then maybe I could vote for it, but all it does is destroy a piece of quality life on the peninsula,” she said.

The vote came after a raucous two-hour public hearing that degenerated into a shouting match between some council members and those in the audience protesting the cuts.

At one point Ryan, pointing to the audience, scolded those who opposed the cuts, noting that city voters had twice turned back proposed tax increases that could have saved the recreation programs and put the city back in the black.

“All you bigmouths wouldn’t put your money on the table when it counted,” he shouted.

One resident jumped to the microphone, yelling back that Ryan and the other council members “didn’t have the guts to raise taxes” on their own.

Rancho Palos Verdes, largest of the four cities on the peninsula, has long had an outstanding parks and recreation program that attracts thousands of users from across the South Bay. But because of the recession and other fiscal problems, the program’s budget has been systematically cut over the past few years.

Last year, the department had a budget of $1 million and ended the year $200,000 in the red, even though the city had raised its regular fees for recreation programs and started charging out-of-town users a higher fee.

And that deficit does not include about $500,000 a year in administrative, maintenance and operation costs, Kuykendall said.

“If you add all of that in, the shortfall is more like $700,000,” he said.

After agonizing debate, the council decided to try to salvage a program for handicapped young adults. Called REACH, it provides classes, outings and special programs for 60 teen-agers and young adults who might not otherwise have such experiences.

The council now spends $50,000 a year to subsidize the program. That subsidy will be cut by more than two-thirds to about $16,000 a year because only 20 of the youngsters are from Rancho Palos Verdes. The hope is that other cities will pick up the cost for their own youngsters, Brooks said.

Brooks also reported that she has been meeting with officials of Rolling Hills Estates and Palos Verdes Estates to see if the three cities can create a tri-city, peninsula-wide recreation district to take over the programs now funded entirely by her city.