HUNTINGTON BEACH : Golf Course Proposal Won’t Be on Ballot

After a parade of angry residents protested the plan, the City Council on Monday decided against putting a park-conversion proposal on the November ballot.

At the city’s invitation, a commercial company had drafted preliminary plans for converting undeveloped Bartlett Park into a nine-hole golf course. City staff had then recommended that the council begin the process of placing the proposal on a citywide ballot this fall.

But the proposal came under heavy criticism at the council’s board meeting. During public comments, 13 residents castigated the golf course concept for Bartlett Park. Many urged the council not to develop the land at all.

The park is on 30 undeveloped acres behind the Newland Shopping Center at Beach Boulevard and Adams Avenue. The city’s concept was to get a commercial operator to landscape, develop and maintain the land at no expense to the taxpayers.

“This plan is seriously flawed, and it’s inappropriate to put a golf course in this location,” said Ed Kerins, representing the citizens’ organization, Huntington Beach Tomorrow.

Councilman Jim Silva said most of the critics appeared to be neighbors of the park and he wondered whether others, including senior citizens, might welcome a new golf course.

But there were critics on the council as well.

“This (Bartlett Park) is a neighborhood-oriented park,” said Councilman Ralph Bauer. “The people who ought to be supporting this (proposed conversion of the park) are opposed to it. If you put this on the ballot, it will virtually fail.”

The council by a 6-1 vote endorsed Bauer’s suggestion that the city staff meet with neighborhood residents to find an acceptable park plan. Silva voted against the idea.