Proposed Sports Facility Not a Hit With All Neighbors

No sooner had major league baseball and the Dodgers announced Tuesday a first-of-its-kind, $10-million sports academy for at-risk youth than Lake View Terrace neighbors of the project’s site in the Hansen Dam Recreation Area raised objections.

Some area residents are not sold on the multimillion-dollar Youth Baseball Academy, questioning how at-risk youth in Los Angeles will be identified and selected to attend the facility and fearing the criteria will be exclusionary.

In partnership with the Dodgers and the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department, major league baseball is committing $3 million to build the complex on 21 acres, and $1 million per year to help operate it.

The rest of the funds are being provided by city, state and federal governments, officials said.

“We are using public money for a private entity,” said Nancy Snider, president of a homeowners association in the area and member of a community coalition that includes two other homeowners associations and two citizens groups. “Anything built with taxpayers’ money should be open to all kids.”

Snider is concerned the academy will serve only youngsters with athletic ability and become “another training camp for Dodger players.”

Kathy Delson, another community member, said people in the neighborhood are not opposed to children having recreational facilities. They just wonder about the wisdom of the project.

“It should accommodate more children in the area,” Delson said. “Most people think it’s a positive thing for the kids, but public funds should be used for the common good.

“Maybe we should build more satellite locations that are community-based or [use the funds] in fixing up our parks, many of which are in disarray.”

Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar), who represents the area where Hansen Dam is situated, said the academy would not be closed to youngsters who don’t fit the at-risk criteria.

“Technically speaking, I don’t think major league baseball is going to turn anyone down,” Cardenas said. “But the availability will be on a priority basis. . . . The purpose, the intent and the follow-through will be on affecting the lives of low-income children.”

The facility will feature two baseball fields, two softball fields and a 20,000-square-foot clubhouse containing lockers, two classrooms, a weightlifting room, a training room and a library.

It will offer an after-school, weekend and summer curriculum blending academics with sports. The year-round programs will be taught by current and former major league baseball personnel involved in such support fields as management, coaching, training, umpiring and groundskeeping.

The Dodgers and baseball officials said they are searching for a satellite site in South-Central Los Angeles to expand the program.

Los Angeles City Councilman Alex Padilla, whose district includes Lake View Terrace, said details on leasing the land from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have not been ironed out, but a lease would probably be long-term and at minimal cost.

Padilla lobbied major league baseball officials earlier this year to choose the Hansen Dam area over seven other locations in the nation.

“The academy will stress the values of hard work, the values of teamwork and the values of sportsmanship,” Padilla said. “I want to highlight the educational components of the academy. That’s what I like the most.”

Cardenas, who chairs the Assembly’s budget committee, said the cost of transporting youngsters to the academy will come out of the $1-million operational budget provided by major league baseball. He said he also plans to ask state legislators to allocate at least $2 million to the academy.

“This project is going to teach kids to reach for the stars,” Cardenas said.

Armando Gomez, San Fernando High School baseball coach, supports the academy, saying such a facility is long overdue in the northeast Valley.

“It’s tough to keep kids off the streets in Pacoima and San Fernando,” Gomez said.

Cardenas and Padilla, both former San Fernando High athletes, said they want at-risk kids to benefit from sports as they did.

“We grew up in that neighborhood,” Padilla said.

“Baseball was what I played, to my parents’ delight, to stay out of trouble.”

Major league baseball has spent $10 million since 1991 through its Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities, or RBI, the cornerstone of its Urban Youth Initiative program. More than 125,000 boys and girls are participating in the program in 160 cities around the world, officials said.

“We really do believe we will have graduates of the academy going into college and professional baseball,” said Sandy Alderson, executive vice president of baseball operations for major league baseball.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Baseball Academy

Major league baseball, the Dodgers and L.A. Parks and Recreation plan to build a baseball academy on a 21-acre site at Hansen Dam Recreation Area for at-risk youth in the Los Angeles area.

What will be offered:

* Baseball and softball clinics instructed by major leaguers and former coaches and players.

* After-school, weekend and summer curricula that will include management, coaching, training, umpiring, statistics and groundskeeping.

Source: Major league baseball