Park District on a Search for Funds : Recreation: Without help from local residents and businesses, Rancho Simi officials say free events such as next month’s Huck Finn Fishing Derby will become memories.

The annual Huck Finn Fishing Derby, where hordes of small children descend on the lagoon at Rancho Simi Community Park in early May to hook catfish, is in jeopardy.

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Without a few more pancake breakfast fund-raisers such as the one the Kiwanis Club put on last month, Simi Valley park officials won’t have the money for the 1,800 pounds of fish it takes to stock the lagoon.

Such is the shaky state of finances of the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District, which was created by the state before Simi Valley was incorporated. Encompassing both the city of Simi Valley and the unincorporated community of Oak Park, it includes 50 parks--35 of which are fully or partly developed--totaling 2,319 acres.

Budget problems have forced the district to lay off 17 of 77 employees the past two years. The park district’s 1992 budget of nearly $8 million lost $1.1 million in property tax revenues because of state restructuring, and park officials don’t expect to ever see that amount restored.

“It’s reality and we don’t like it,” park district spokesman Rick Johnson said. “But we’re living with it.”

Living with it means creative fund-raising solutions and asking the community to increase its involvement. Without help from residents and local businesses, park officials say free events such as the Huck Finn Fishing Derby will become only memories. It will cost at least $4,000 to buy the fish and stage the event, scheduled for May 7. The Kiwanis breakfast raised $500, and several companies together have donated $600, so the district is a few thousand dollars short.

“See, I’ve got two flyers here,” said Johnson, spreading out two pieces of paper on his desk. “One says free, the other one has a $1 entrance fee. We’ve never charged for this event before, but we might have to.”

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A dollar might not seem like much, but for Johnson, a 19-year veteran of the park district and one of the founders of the fishing derby, it’s depressing to have to ask for it. The event draws as many as 900 children, all eager to catch their limit of three catfish.

“After all these years of free special events, it just seems kind of hard to get up and make the parents pay a dollar for a pole,” Johnson said.

Debi Schultze, a member of the park district’s board of directors, said community response to the district’s needs has been strong so far.

“We really tried last year to reach out to the community to help us out with our non-revenue-producing events,” Schultze said. “By working as partners with private industries and the community, we can get through this.”

More than 800 volunteers work occasionally with the park district, clearing trails, staffing special events and helping out wherever they can. About 125 of those volunteers provide a core that Johnson said he relies on heavily.

Two golf courses owned by the district--Simi Hills and Sinaloa--are leased to a private operator. District board member Jim Meredith said he welcomed the arrangement, which began about two years ago, because it saves the district upkeep costs while keeping greens fees low.

“We’ve gotten competitive and we’re doing things we never would have thought of doing before,” Meredith said. “And it’s working.”

This year’s Easter egg hunts in Oak Park and Simi Valley were rescued from cancellation by community donations that ranged from fast-food gift certificates to bunnies, both chocolate and stuffed. The TJ Maxx clothing chain donated $5,175 for the events.

To furnish the nearly completed community center at Rancho Santa Susana Community Park, officials have turned to the business community for help. The district took out a short-term, low-interest $3.1-million loan to construct the building, an imposing, gray stone structure at the eastern end of town on Katherine Road. But the 26,000-square-foot center still needs file cabinets, chairs, tables, desks and recreational equipment.

A recent $23,727 donation from Simi Valley-based Micom Communications Corp. will furnish the lobby and recreation room, but five more rooms will remain bare until a benefactor comes along.

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In exchange for the sponsorship, Micom gets the rooms named after it for five years, a tax deduction and an entitlement to hold one event a year free of charge in the room. In 1999, the sponsorship goes back up for grabs.

Schultze said the district hopes to make some money by offering the new community center to the public for wedding receptions, dinners and bar mitzvahs. The multipurpose room in the front of the center, complete with a sizable kitchen and attached patio, would be ideal, she said. Rental prices are still being discussed, but park officials say they will aim at being competitive with local hotels and restaurants.

Another topic of discussion is opening Strathearn Historical Park for weddings and receptions.

“Because of the budget constraints, we’re always looking for ways of raising revenues,” Johnson said. “It’s kind of tucked away in an isolated place, but people see how nice and quiet it is and so they want to get married there.’

But the idea has members of the historical society worried. They fear the city’s oldest settled area will be damaged by party guests more concerned about where their next glass of champagne is coming from than about how barley farmers sowed their crops in 1890.

The central feature of the six-acre park is the Simi Adobe, which was built in the early 1800s by the Pico family, the first Spanish settlers in Simi Valley. It is the oldest structure in the city.

A Victorian addition was built onto the front of the adobe by Robert P. Strathearn, a Scottish settler who brought the land in 1889. He used the adobe as his kitchen and dining room and it remained virtually unchanged until the late 1950s, when his descendants installed wall heaters and a refrigerator. In 1969, the family donated the property to the city.

The roof and walls of the adobe were badly damaged by the Jan. 17 earthquake, and it has been closed since then.

Other buildings relocated to the grounds include the first library in Simi Valley and one of the original prefabricated homes brought from Chicago by early settlers. The atmosphere at the park is that of an old Western town set in the middle of suburban Simi Valley.

Members of the historical society say they would like to see repairs--expected to cost at least $500,000--made before the weddings discussion goes any further.

“There are just too many unanswered questions,” said Jan Smith, the society’s president. “There are so many sensitive areas archeologically that there isn’t a spot that would be conducive to holding a wedding.”

The grounds may hold artifacts of the Chumash tribe, as well as items buried by Spanish settlers, she said. Wedding celebrants traipsing across the grounds is not an image Smith would like to see actualized.

Schultze said a special wedding site, possibly a gazebo or rose garden, would need to be built on the grounds. She said the very limited on-site parking could also put a damper on plans. The fears of the historical society are legitimate, she said.

“I think this caught everybody off guard, because we’d just been feeling the waters and had never even had an in-depth discussion,” Schultze said. “But we only want to do something that’s good for the community and good for the historical society and the park.”