CALIFORNIA ALBUM : Carlsbad Battles Over Lego Park Plan : The seaside town is fighting over whether a proposed amusement area will uphold wholesome image or flood it with fast-food restaurants and cut-rate motels.

Would the proposed Lego Family Park USA, a 40-acre theme park built with those tiny plastic blocks that kids love, be a financial boon, brimming with wholesomeness?

Or would it lead to the “Disneylandization” of this upscale seaside community, with cut-rate motels, strip malls and fast-food restaurants soon to follow?

Such are the poles of the civic debate as Carlsbad bids against Prince William County, Va., to win the hearts and minds of the Danish-based Lego Group, which is deciding between the two sites for its first U.S. park. A decision is expected this summer.

Carlsbad Mayor Bud Lewis, a retired high school history teacher and assistant football coach, was among those city officials who recently went to Denmark, at city expense, to examine the Legoland park at Billund, a five-hour ride from Copenhagen. He returned a believer.

“I came away totally pleased with the wholesome, family-oriented atmosphere,” Lewis said. “It’s not a park like Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm or Magic Mountain. It’s a children’s educational park.”

Wholesome is very important in Carlsbad. “If I was allowed only one word to describe Legoland, it would be wholesome ,” said Councilwoman Margaret Stanton, executive vice president with the Jazzercise exercise company.

The opponents of Lego, called Neighbors Against the Invasion of Lego (NAIL), are not conceding any ground on the wholesomeness front. They are urging residents to tell Lego to stay out of Carlsbad.

They’re handing out anti-Lego flyers at the beach and the Plaza Camino Real shopping mall, two of the most common gathering spots for Carlsbad residents. They worry about traffic, crowded beaches and blighted views.

“As a kid I remember going to Disneyland, staying with my folks in a motel and going swimming and it was great,” said NAIL co-founder Joe Fallon, a mechanical engineer who played football for Lewis at Carlsbad High School.

“You go to Anaheim now and the motels are weekly occupancy, transients, a real horror show,” Fallon said. “Carlsbad has never been about that stuff.”

In growth terms, it is a common story.

“The reason people moved here is that Carlsbad is a little, picturesque seaside community, and they want it to stay that way,” said Pat McInerney, a bartender who also has a weekly talk show on Carlsbad radio station KCEO.

Located 35 miles north of San Diego, Carlsbad has been one of the state’s fastest-growing cities: from 35,490 residents in 1980 to 64,264 in 1991. Growth has come in the form of pricey subdivisions, gated condominium projects and gleaming business parks.

The average home price is $238,000; the median income is $45,739. Industry is light and clean. “Big Bertha” golf clubs, which took America by storm after getting a quasi-endorsement from President George Bush, are made by Calloway Golf Co. in Carlsbad.

“People may not like to hear it, but Carlsbad is already a tourist town,” Lewis said. In fact, the city’s biggest single employer is the La Costa Hotel & Spa.

Some recent attempts, though, to boost the tourist trade have flopped. The Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament Inc., a theme park/restaurant/dinner theater chain that offers prime rib and jousting contests, gave Carlsbad a sniff but backed off.

A Japanese investment group promised a fancy hotel and a golf course. The golf course, designed by Arnold Palmer, is done, but the group ran out of money in mid-construction on the hotel, which sits half-built on a hill overlooking Bataquitos Lagoon.

The Lego park would be east of Interstate 5 and north of the road leading to Palomar Airport on hilly land that has been used for decades to grow tomatoes and flowers. Nearby is one of the city’s best-known landmarks: a mock Danish windmill that is part of the Pea Soup Andersen motel and restaurant.

Lego officials have given no indication whether they’re leaning toward Carlsbad or Prince William County.

But they emphasize that their U.S. park will be designed for the under-13 set, the “It’s a Small, Small World” contingent, with none of the “high-speed thrill rides, neon lights and carnival atmosphere” of other American theme parks. Children will be able to play with Legos and see attractions, such as a miniature Statue of Liberty, made from Legos.

Both sides in the Carlsbad dispute have recruited children to carry their message.

Carlsbad officials took letters from schoolchildren to Billund and presented them to Lego executives. Not to be outdone, NAIL activists brought children wearing Stop Lego buttons to a recent council meeting.

NAIL is not soothed by word that Billund does not suffer a crush of traffic and tacky commercial uses. Denmark is not America, they warn, and the pressures from development interests will be enormous.

“Carlsbad had maintained a small Midwestern feel in a town located on the coast with 65,000 people,” said NAIL member Geoff Bell, a dentist. “I think the analogy of Billund to Carlsbad is absurd. The analogy to Anaheim and Disneyland is much closer, not so much the character of the park but what impact it would have.”

Lego boosters say NAIL is just NIMBY (not in my back yard) by a different acronym.

“To people who don’t want change, we have no argument,” said Lee Bohlmann, executive director of the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce. “This would change Carlsbad, but it’s a good use, a family-oriented thing that fits in with the essence of Carlsbad.”

Even if Lego selects Carlsbad, the political fight may have just begun. Like many other cities, land-use planning is a blood sport in Carlsbad.

The city planning director estimates that it would take 18 months for the project to wind through the bureaucracy to a final vote before the City Council. Even that might not settle things; twice in recent years, Carlsbad citizens have used the initiative process to push slow-growth measures.

Although the park may be childlike, the political maneuvering is grown-up. Virginia’s Gov. Douglas Wilder is assisting Prince William County, and Gov. Pete Wilson and his pro-business Team California task force are pushing Carlsbad.

Part of the fight is over numbers.

Lego boosters say it would bring 2.2 million visitors a year, create 20 full-time jobs and 1,200 seasonal jobs, and pump millions of dollars into the city economy. NAIL says attendance might be twice that, with additional city costs for police protection and trash removal.

“With this recession mode, and the state taking money from the cities, Carlsbad has to find other revenue,” Lewis said.

At a City Council meeting, the mayor accused NAIL of using propaganda and scare tactics.

“Of course our group is scared,” Fallon said later. “We’re scared of losing our quality of life in this special community.”