Community Center’s Lack of Gym Cited : Recreation: Some say the absence of athletic facilities at the new $6.5-million building was the result of a failure to bridge the generation gap.

When the new Community Center is completed this winter, it will have two lobbies, two large assembly rooms and several meeting rooms.

City officials expect to book 50 to 75 wedding receptions a year and countless gatherings of community and youth organizations.

But the building might be more notable for what it won’t have: a gymnasium.

Some residents are frustrated that even after spending $6.5 million on the new facility, the city still has only one gym--at Travis Ranch Activity Center.

At a recent City Council meeting, Mike Weiner, president of Yorba Linda Junior Basketball, told the council his organization has to travel outside the city for many of its games. The organization has grown from 400 to more than 700 players in four years, and organizers said they desperately need another gymnasium.

Still, the center will give the city more options for other types of youth activities.

Earleen Chandler, city recreation superintendent, said the number of craft and dance classes, as well as preschool programs, will probably double after the center opens early next year.

The stylish, pale pink building on the corner of Imperial Highway and Casa Loma Avenue is expected to serve as a landmark to motorists--a sort of beacon that establishes the city’s northwest boundary. But it could also serve as a monument to the end of an era in city politics.

The City Council that will preside over the grand opening of the center sometime next winter will be vastly different from the council that approved the project and attended the groundbreaking last October.

At that time, the council consisted of five men--four over 60--who between them had only two children under the age of 18. Although the councilmen resided in different geographic areas of the city, many residents felt the majority of the council represented the interests of the city’s aging West Side area and its older residents.

The new council has four men and one woman, three in their early 40s and two in their 60s, and between them they have seven children under 18. All live east of Fairmont Boulevard, the city’s unofficial dividing line between old and new.

According to several council members, the current lineup is much more interested in youth activities and thus more willing to spend money on recreation facilities.

“This (new) council never would have (approved) this community center” without including a gym, said Mayor John M. Gullixson, who was the lone no vote on the project last August.

Council members Barbara Kiley and Daniel T. Welch, who were both elected just weeks after the building’s foundation was poured, agreed.

“The center is so expensive,” Kiley said. “(But) if it had a gym, we could justify it.”

Nevertheless, Welch said, the building will be an asset to the city.

The center will have 28,000 square feet of meeting and activity rooms. One room has been set aside for the Yorba Linda Women’s Club, which donated insurance money to the city. The club’s own facility was burned 17 years ago.

A separate lobby and two game rooms have been designated for use by senior citizens. However, other community groups will also have use of those rooms.

Construction on the center is expected to be completed in late November.