Church Link Delays O.C. Rec Center

Nine months after Aliso Viejo officials tentatively accepted an offer from a church-connected charity to build a $15-million recreation center on leased city land, the proposal has stalled.

Attorneys for the Lake Forest foundation behind the offer are investigating how to protect the charity from litigation relating to the separation of church and state, and the process has halted the project for now.

The offer to construct the gym was made by the Gabrielson Foundation, which is affiliated with a Lake Forest church, the Pacific Center for Positive Living.

The proposed 82,000-square-foot facility would feature a basketball gym and office and meeting space for nonprofit organizations, including a Boys & Girls Club, the Braille Institute and the American Red Cross.

The center would be available for public use, but would be owned and operated by a foundation established last year by Pacific Center pastors Steve and Lynn Gabrielson of Aliso Viejo for the purpose of building the facility.

Part of the facility would also be used for church services.

Tom Burton, a foundation attorney and board member, said his group is looking to buy insurance against the possibility that leasing the land from the city could be challenged on constitutional grounds and the facility would end up being owned by the city.

“The foundation has a responsibility to what might happen in the future, 40, 50 years down the road, when somebody might challenge this deal,” he said.

“When you’re talking about the kind of money we are, you don’t rely on current data.”

City Manager David J. Norman said he understands why the foundation would be interested in protecting itself against potential legal action.

“You could never predict what a circuit court or the Supreme Court could rule in this church-state area,” Norman said.

“We don’t blame them for looking into insurance. It’s a lot of money. They could end up in a position of building a $16-million asset and being dispossessed by court order.”

Two months before the Aliso Viejo City Council voted 5-0 to tentatively accept the Gabrielson Foundation’s offer, neighboring Mission Viejo rejected a similar deal from the Gabrielson Foundation. Mission Viejo Councilwoman Patricia Kelley said she had several problems with the proposed project.

“I wanted to make sure we were being fair to other churches who might want the same deal,” said Kelley, one of three council members who didn’t support the project. “There’s not much land left to build churches in south county. I also felt the church-state issue needed to be explored. I really anticipated that it could get us into trouble. It almost sounded like they were pulling in all these other nonprofits to make their church more palatable to the city.”

Burton insists the church’s involvement in the foundation is minimal.

The foundation has agreed that no more than two members of the church be allowed to serve on the group’s five-member board of directors.

“We feel we’re a secular organization,” he said. “The Gabrielson Foundation is a support organization whose sole mission is to support nonprofits, and one of those organizations is Pacific Center for Positive Living.”

The building would sit on seven acres of what was once a sheep ranch near Moulton and Alicia parkways, across from Aliso Viejo Middle School.

Norman said the city’s youth would benefit from the after-school programs that a Boys & Girls Club could provide.

“We just don’t have a place for youth to congregate,” he said. “Right now a lot of them go to the malls.”

Most of the foundation’s money for the proposed gymnasium is promised by a single donor, and some city officials wonder whether it is secure. Mayor William Phillips said the foundation has already missed one proof-of-funding deadline.

“It always crosses your mind that maybe they really do not have the funds,” Phillips said. “But from their end, the piece that has to come first is the whole issue they have with potential church-state challenge.”