COSTA MESA : Panel Wants to Build Basketball Courts

Parks commissioners recently declared they want to build high-quality basketball courts in the city, partly in reaction to the dozens of people who came to a January meeting to protest the closing of basketball courts at Tanager Park.

“Before we suggest any other sort of improvements, we should address the basketball situation,” said commissioner Richard Mehren at the Parks, Recreation Facilities and Parkways Commission meeting.

In a city survey last winter, residents named basketball as their favorite recreational sport.

The commissioners closed down the two basketball courts at Tanager Park last year after residents complained that ballplayers there were rude, loud and littered the park. But two members of the girls’ basketball team at Estancia High School petitioned the City Council to restore the hoops. The council asked the parks commissioners to reconsider.

In January, commissioners heard more than three hours of conflicting public testimony and decided to study the park situation before reinstalling the basketball hoops.

The commissioners recommended at their February meeting that the council spend more than $900,000 on field and playground equipment improvements. Mehren suggested spending $100,000 to $200,000 to build four high-quality courts in the city. The council will have to approve all expenditures.

There is only $566,945 budgeted for park improvements in fiscal year 1993-94, and the major source of that money--park in-lieu fees paid by developers--has recently fallen sharply.

According to Marcus D. Davis, assistant finance director, developers paid the city more than $240,000 in fiscal years 1991-92 and 1992-93. But in the first five months of fiscal year 1993-94, only $28,744 has been received because of little commercial development.

The parks commissioners voted to present the council with requests for more than $3.8 million in park improvements, but decided to rank their requests.