COSTA MESA : Group Wants City to Keep Center Open

About 30 people came to this week’s council meeting to demonstrate their support for a community center that may have to be closed.

The city is negotiating to extend its lease on the Balearic Center, but faces the hurdle of skyrocketing rents.

Since 1977, the city has paid a token rent of $1 a year to the Newport-Mesa Unified School District. But school district official Carolyn Stocker said Newport-Mesa now wants market value for renting out the property, which she estimated at $66,000 a year.

City Manager Allan L. Roeder told residents at Monday’s council meeting that the city does not want to reduce the availability of child-care, after-school and other programs offered at the center. But he said he will present the council with options for moving these operations elsewhere if the city can no longer afford to rent the building at 1975 Balearic Drive.

Roeder said the city pays $110,000 annually to rent another community center--the REA Community Center at 661 Hamilton St.

Councilman Jay Humphrey encouraged the residents to make their feelings known to members of the Newport-Mesa school board, since they are the ones who want to raise the rent.

The Balearic Center lease expires June 30. The council will discuss the lease at a May 9 study session and is scheduled to vote on the lease May 16.

Stocker said the district would like to keep the city as a tenant, but it also wants to get more rental money.

“If I was in business, I’d want the same,” said Andrea Coghill, who lives near the Balearic Center and sent her two children to programs there. But she says she thinks the school district should consider the overall good of the community.