MOORPARK : Use of Redevelopment Funds for Park Backed

Despite some members’ concerns, the Moorpark City Council has tentatively agreed to spend city redevelopment dollars on a $3.6-million park that is outside its redevelopment area.

At the council’s Wednesday meeting, Mayor Paul Lawrason and Councilman Bernardo Perez lobbied against a proposal to use nearly $700,000 of the city’s redevelopment money to complete the 69-acre Arroyo Vista Community Park on Tierra Rejada Road.

Perez and Lawrason said the council should hold true to its commitment to use redevelopment money primarily to aid downtown residents and revamp the city’s sleepy downtown strip.

“When you think of where we’re going to spend our redevelopment funds, you think, ‘Hey, downtown,’ ” Perez said Friday. “I would feel much better if we did not use any redevelopment funds (for the park) at this point. I’m concerned with the message we’re giving.”

Councilmen Scott Montgomery and John Wozniak had argued that the use of redevelopment dollars on the park was appropriate and would allow the city to keep more money in a special fund it had created to build a park on Casey Road downtown.

After some discussion, the council tentatively agreed on a 5-0 vote to use just over $200,000 in redevelopment funds on the park but to take $946,000 from the downtown park fund, Montgomery said.

“It was a balancing act, frankly,” he said. “Do we take the money out of the downtown park fund or out of redevelopment?”

The council must finalize the action when it meets again as the redevelopment agency board.