MOORPARK : City to Co-Sponsor Athletic Fund-Raiser

The city of Moorpark has agreed to co-sponsor a planned country and Western concert this fall that would benefit an athletic complex under construction at Moorpark High School.

The council voted 5 to 0 Wednesday to lend its name and influence to the fund-raiser being organized by the Moorpark Athletic Community Complex committee, said Mayor Paul Lawrason. Exact details of what the partnership will entail have yet to be worked out.

“We’re amenable to working with them to make this country concert work,” Lawrason said. “From my personal standpoint, the objectives of MACC are without question something that I really want to support.”

The nonprofit group had initially planned to hold the one-day event for 15,000 spectators in the rural Happy Camp Canyon Regional Park north of Moorpark, but backed away from the site after strong opposition from the council and area residents.

Committee spokeswoman Barbara Loczi said Thursday that the group is considering other sites, primarily a 500-acre parcel in the city’s southeast area.

Loczi said the Moorpark Unified School District has signed on as a concert co-sponsor and that the Moorpark Chamber of Commerce was considering a request to join the effort.

Money raised through the concert will benefit construction of the athletic complex that has been partially constructed at the high school. Once complete, the complex will include a lighted football stadium, all-weather track and field facility, lighted softball fields, Olympic pool complex with water polo and diving facilities, weight training facility with locker rooms and four tennis courts.