Costa Mesa council places Fairview Park measure calling for voter approval of athletic fields
Costa Mesa City Council members decided Tuesday to see whether local residents are willing to play ball with a proposed measure that would require voter approval for future athletic fields at Fairview Park.
The council voted 3-2, with members Sandy Genis and Katrina Foley opposed, to officially place the measure on the Nov. 8 general election ballot.
The proposal will compete with one sponsored by the Fairview Park Preservation Alliance, an activist group whose proposed law would give voters the power to approve or reject several types of changes at the park, such as installing additional lighting, expanding operating hours or building permanent structures.
Should both measures pass, the one receiving the most votes would prevail.
If triumphant in November, the city’s measure would prohibit development of athletic fields in Fairview Park without voter approval.
According to Tuesday’s agenda, athletic fields would be defined as “a piece or part of a piece of property that is developed, constructed or otherwise improved for the purpose of facilitating organized outdoor team sports, including but not limited to lacrosse fields, baseball fields, soccer fields, football fields or volleyball courts, but expressly not including pathways or trails, which might have multiple purposes including bicycling, walking or running.”
Council members further refined that definition Tuesday to specify that the measure also would require voter approval for basketball courts, courts for racket sports, golf facilities and tracks for motorized vehicles such as go-karts.
Residents who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting questioned why the council would bother with a competing measure. What’s the harm, they asked, in letting residents decide whether to approve or reject the residents’ measure already on the ballot?
In early May, members of the Fairview Park Preservation Alliance submitted more than 7,100 signatures in favor of putting their measure to a public vote this fall. Supporters say the proposal would help preserve the 208-acre park as open space.
Alliance President Richard Mehren said the city’s competing measure is “an affront to the citizens who spent the time to go out there and get the signatures and do it the right way.”
Mayor Pro Tem Jim Righeimer said the alliance’s measure is an overreach and that adopting it would be “the wrong thing to do.”
“Here’s the good news for people that want to save the park: No matter what initiative passes, in order to do ball fields or soccer fields or whatever, it will take a vote of the people,” Righeimer said.
Genis said she thinks the city’s measure is “designed to confuse people” and that she’s concerned it would allow future encroachments that would degrade Fairview Park.
“This would allow death by a thousand small cuts and then, of course, you may as well go ahead and put the ball fields in there,” she said.
She also implied there’s an ulterior motive for the city-sponsored measure.
“I have to wonder what it is that is being planned for the park, because everybody says we’re not doing anything,” she said. “Well, if you’re not going to do anything, then why is it so important to do this? I have to wonder, what is the big fear here?”
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Luke Money, lucas.money@latimes.com
Twitter: @LukeMMoney
