Fans Seek to Save Fields of Dreams

The six Little League diamonds in Huntington Beach are about as nice as they come, thanks in part to a $200,000 donation five years ago from Major League Baseball and a children’s foundation operated by retired slugger Mark McGwire, whose son played at the fields.

There’s the electronic scoreboard, the new bleachers, the resurfaced infields and the enclosed, brick dugouts.

But now, baseball boosters are fighting to save the fields from bulldozers.

Trustees of the Fountain Valley School District will debate Thursday whether the diamonds are better kept intact for the 600-player baseball league, or whether they -- and the rest of a former 15-acre school site -- should be sold off for residential development. The financially strapped district could gain as much as $25 million.

The ball fields, at Pioneer Avenue and Magnolia Street, were part of a campus used until 1983 as Wardlow Elementary School. With declining enrollment, the campus was converted for use by the Boys & Girls Club, which serves 1,120 members at the site, and as a Head Start chapter. The ball fields were leased to the Little League.

The possible loss of the ball fields has struck a particularly emotional chord with community activists, Little League parents and McGwire’s foundation, which have organized petition drives and created a website, saveourfield.org.

“The issue is not how much money you can make,” said Jim Milner, McGwire’s agent and chief financial officer of the Mark McGwire Foundation for Children. “It’s what can we do for our kids today and what are our core values. Is it all about money? If it is, then when are we going to start selling our parks or start charging to go to the beach? When is it all going to stop?”

But district officials argue that they, too, have a responsibility to children.

“A lot of parents from the district will be at the meeting to support the sale because they realize the surplus properties are here to support the mission of this district,” said Barry Blade, the district’s assistant superintendent of business services. “Recreational space is something the county and the city are supposed to provide, not the school district.”

The school board will vote Thursday not only on the sale of the Wardlow property, but also on two other former school sites, Lamb and Nieblas. Blade said the sale of all three properties could bring the district about $80 million, which, if invested, would generate $4 million to $5 million annually.

The district now makes about $250,000 a year leasing the properties to the baseball and youth clubs, preschools, the American Youth Soccer Organization and the Huntington Beach Union High School District for office space.

The sale proceeds, Blade said, could be used to increase teacher salaries, which are among the lowest in Orange County, reinstitute music programs, hire more tutors and reading specialists and restore class-size reduction by adding teachers.

“The state is not funding education nearly as much as they should,” Blade said. “So to raise this amount of money, we’d have to go to the public and ask them to tax themselves $300 a year forever. I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

Huntington Beach officials say they are exploring their options. Councilwoman Debbie Cook said the city could buy the land, with voter approval of a parcel tax. The Naylor Act allows cities, counties, nonprofit organizations and recreational districts to buy school district land for 25% of its market value.

School district officials said the land would not be sold to a developer until late 2006 at the earliest, meaning the Huntington Valley Little League can count on at least two more seasons.

Renee Aumiller, a Little League board member, said Huntington Valley would survive.

“We might have to relocate, but we won’t disband,” she said.

“I understand the plight of the school district, but as a community we all owe it to each other to explore every avenue. We owe it to the kids to develop them physically, emotionally and spiritually.”