County Will Transfer Parks to Cities, State : Finances: Ten facilities will be turned over due to $3.8-million budget shortfall. Services may improve in some areas, but other sites may require help of residents.

For the first time in history, Los Angeles County plans to turn over to local cities and the state at least 10 parks worth millions of dollars because it can no longer afford to operate them.

The transfers mark a fundamental shift in the role of the county, which is being reduced to providing only the most essential public safety services. Once considered assets, local parks have become a liability in the wake of the county’s worst fiscal crisis, officials said.

Two parks already have been transferred to the city of Los Angeles, which reluctantly assumed the financial burden of running them to prevent their closure. Another eight parks are scheduled to be transferred this fall to cities including Calabasas, Santa Clarita and Malibu, and to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a state agency ordinarily involved in the acquisition or preservation of rural parkland.

Tough as the transfers may be on cities, county officials say a $3.8-million cutback in this year’s parks budget leaves them little choice: either transfer the parks or close them.

“We just don’t have the financial resources to do it all anymore, and it’s not going to get any better,” said Henry Roman, assistant director of the county Department of Parks and Recreation. “We’ll probably see more of these transfers.”

Most park visitors are unlikely to notice the change in administration. Services may actually improve in such areas as Malibu, where the city will offer more recreation classes and make it easier to get a permit to be married in a local park.

That might not be the case in Santa Clarita, where city officials have warned residents that they may have to help trim the grass and pick up trash at Bouquet Canyon Park when they take over the county park this fall. The city has to stretch its $2-million parks budget to include Bouquet, so maintenance there and at Santa Clarita’s nine other parks could decline as a result.

But for some residents, that seems a reasonable price.

“I’ll do whatever I have to to keep the park open,” said Mary Vigiano, an executive secretary who lives near Bouquet. “My 4-year-old thinks it’s his back yard.”

The 10 transfers will save the county more than $1 million annually and reduce liability costs by an undetermined amount, said Tony Yakimowich, a budget official with the county parks department.

In some cases, the county never owned the parks being transferred, but nonetheless had complete control of them after developing and operating them for local cities or the state since the 1950s, when money was not a problem.

Now that times are bad, the county is giving them back. Some of the transfers are temporary according to written agreements, but city officials said they have been told not to expect the county to ever take them back.

“Our feeling is it will be a longtime situation,” said Catherine Walter, Malibu’s parks director.

Although 130 parks will remain in county hands, the transfers are a clear sign that the county’s mission is changing, said Peter Whittingham, parks deputy to Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who represents parts of the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys.

The county is getting out of the business of running smaller community parks and concentrating on larger, regional ones, he said.

Any new parkland acquired by the county with funds from a ballot measure approved last year by voters will either be open space that does not require much upkeep or land that volunteer groups or nonprofit agencies agree to maintain, said Jim Park, head planner for the county parks department.

“It’s a gut-wrenching decision for us to give up these parks, but our customers don’t care as long as they stay open,” said Rodney Cooper, the county’s parks director.

Los Angeles is not the only county to slash its parks budget in the wake of the June state budget accord that shifted $2.6 billion in property tax revenue from local governments, mostly counties, to finance public schools.

Riverside County, for instance, has closed one of its 35 parks, reduced hours at others and raised parking fees. It is currently negotiating with the city of Perris to take over a 600-acre county park.

“Parks are lower on the list than health care, law enforcement and other services counties are obligated to provide,” said Robert Fisher, director of Orange County’s parks department, which tried to transfer two of its parks earlier this summer, but was turned down by the cities of Placentia and Lake Forest.

Some cities may be in a better position to take on the parks not only because they fared better under the state budget than the counties did, but also because they have other means of raising funds, including utilities and business taxes.

Bell Gardens, for example, has a hefty tax base, thanks to the Bicycle Club card casino, so it can afford to shoulder the financial burden. The city has already paid the county more than $60,000 to keep the John Anson Ford Park open this summer and is negotiating with the county to take control of the park.

Others have politely but emphatically declined, county officials said.

“We’re stretched to the limit as it is,” said Carla Agar, spokeswoman for the state Department of Parks and Recreation, which turned down a request from the county to take over two state-owned parks that were long operated by the county--Pan Pacific Regional Park in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles and Malibu Bluffs Community Regional Park. “Our mission is to protect areas of statewide significance, not local parks.”

Some cash-poor cities are following the county’s lead, looking for others to share the cost of public parks.

“We’re talking to La Canada Flintridge about sharing the costs” of operating Oak Grove Community Park, a city-owned park the county had long operated, said Pasadena City Manager Philip Hawkey. But Pasadena refused to take over Eaton Canyon, a 183-acre county park with a nature center on the outskirts of the city.

“We have our own budget problems,” Hawkey said.

The county’s problems operating its parks are likely to worsen in coming years, officials said. Earlier this summer, officials warned they might have to close 23 parks, a move they avoided partly by negotiating the transfers.

“A lot of people forget there is a real expense to operating parks. They think it’s just open space,” said Yakimowich, the county budget official. “But we have to pay for water, lights, ground maintenance, rubbish pickup, irrigation, hazards like gopher holes, landscaping and vandalism cleanup. And all that doesn’t come free.”

County-operated parks slated for transfer Park: El Cariso Park Acreage: 169 acres Location: Sylmar Status: Owned by county, to be leased to Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy for two years. Annual operating cost: $346,000 Improvements included: pool, ball fields, basketball courts, picnic shelters. Park: Bouquet Canyon Park Acreage: 20 acres Location: borders city of Santa Clarita Status: County-owned, to be transferred to Santa Clarita. Annual operating cost: $50,000 Improvements included: basketball courts, softball fields, tennis and picnic areas. Park: Ernest E. Debs Regional Parks Acreage: 182 acres Location: Los Angeles near Highland Park. Status: Owned by city, run by county on long-term lease. transferred July 1 back to city of Los Angeles. Annual operating cost: $56,000 Improvements included: hilly site includes wildlife preserve with a lake, bird sanctuary, picnic sites. Park: Pan Pacific Regional Park Acreage: 27 acres Location: Fairfax district in city of Los Angeles Status: Owned by the state, run by the county on long-term lease. Transferred July 1 to Los Angeles. Annual operating cost: $108,000 Improvements included: soccer field, small amphitheater, picnic areas and baseball diamond Park: Oak Grove Community Park Acreage: 53 acres Location: Pasadena Status: Owned by Pasadena, operated by county on long-term lease. will be permanently transferred to Pasadena on Sept. 24. Annual operating cost: $12,000 Improvements included: picnic areas and fields Park: Malibu Bluffs Community Regional Park Acreage: 5.3 acres Location: Malibu Status: Owned by the state, operated by the county on long-term lease. will be leased to city of Malibu. Annual operating cost: $89,000 Improvements included: community building, baseball diamond, soccer field and picnic areas. Park: Malibu Equestrian Park Acreage: 46 acres Location: Malibu Status: Owned by Santa Monica Unified School District, operated by county on long-term lease. will be leased to city of Malibu. Annual operating cost: $2,000 Improvements included: horse corrals, rings Park: Charmlee Park and Nature Center Acreage: 523 acres Location: Santa Monica Mountains near Malibu Status: County-owned park to be leased to Malibu. Annual operating cost: $90,000 Improvements included: nature center with displays, tours and some classes. Park: Gates Canyon Park Acreage: 7 acres Location: Calabasas Status: County-owned, to be transferred permanently to Calabasas. Annual operating cost: $8,200 Improvements included: picnic and all-purpose fields. Park: John Anson Ford Community Regional Park Acreage: 11 acres Location: Bell Gardens Status: County-owned. Annual operating cost: $324,000 Improvements included: gymnasium, pool, ball diamonds, small fishing pond. picnic shelters. Park: Bodger Park Acreage: 11 acres Location: Hawthorne Status: Owned by Lawndale School District, operated by county on long-term lease. negotiations beginning to transfer to city of Hawthorne. Annual operating cost: $94,200 Improvements included: recreation building, softball diamond, basketball and volleyball courts, picnic shelters. Source: Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation.