Camarillo Warned of Stadium’s Pitfalls : Government: Council hears from a community whose funds were strained when it built sports facility.

A city councilman whose community recently built a minor league stadium warned the Camarillo City Council on Wednesday that it should avoid spending any significant amounts of city money on a proposed $15.6-million baseball stadium in western Ventura County.

George Alongi, a first-term councilman from Lake Elsinore in Riverside County, told the council that within one year he watched a reported $8.5-million stadium project in his city balloon into a $24-million project that depleted his city’s redevelopment agency budget and forced officials to dip into the city’s general reserve funds.

“I think minor league baseball is a great type of recreation. But I’m here tonight to warn you about the pitfalls--it’s not all glory,” Alongi said. “My recommendation is that you let the private sector build this stadium.”

After Alongi’s presentation, Camarillo Mayor Michael Morgan stressed that the council went on record last month with its opposition to spending any public funds for the proposed Tri-Cities Baseball Stadium.

On Wednesday, the council also asked for a status report in January from the Ventura County project’s consultants, whose principal adviser also worked on the Lake Elsinore stadium.

Alongi said that a great portion of the cost overruns were attributed to the city wanting to open the facility, known as the Lake Elsinore Diamond Stadium, by April in time for the start of the baseball season.

To meet that date, construction crews sometimes worked around the clock. Officials estimate that more than $10 million in cost overruns added to the project’s growing expense.

Alongi agreed to speak to Camarillo council members Wednesday at the request of Citizens Opposed to Public Spending, a Camarillo group fighting any city financing for the proposed facility.

Criticism of the Lake Elsinore project by community activists sparked a Riverside County grand jury investigation into the way the city financed the project, which opened for its first season in April.

In their Dec. 5 interim report, grand jurors issued Lake Elsinore officials a scathing rebuke and called for an independent audit of the stadium’s financing plan. They also called for the creation of an independent citizens’ finance review committee to advise the city’s Redevelopment Agency on any future projects.

Officials in Camarillo, Oxnard and Ventura earlier this year decided to examine the possibility of bringing minor league baseball to the county by building a state-of-the-art stadium.

So far, the councils have agreed to pay jointly for an $85,000 preliminary study of the proposed 5,500-seat stadium and have settled on a site: an undeveloped parcel behind the Ventura Auto Mall.

Spectrum Group, which manages the Lake Elsinore site, has recommended the Ventura location as the best of several alternative sites for a stadium.

On Wednesday, Camarillo City Councilman Ken Gose--who sits on a tri-city committee studying the project--said he has never attempted to hide the Lake Elsinore cost overruns from the public.

“I have proposed that we look at this project and give it a fair hearing,” Gose said. “But I will guarantee you that I won’t bring it back (to the council) for consideration unless we have generated a lot of private investment in the project.”

Gose, who attended the April opening day of the single-A Lake Elsinore Storm, said he too opposed the breakneck speed and resulting cost overruns that marked the Lake Elsinore stadium’s construction.