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MyspaceIn 2010, as the City of Santa Barbara was looking to reduce costs, the Las Positas Tennis Courts were leased to the Elings Park Foundation for $1 a year for 18 years.
The lease states “The Premises shall be used only for the development, operation and maintenance of a public tennis recreation facility…All use of the Premises pursuant to this lease shall be compatible with and accessory to the park purposes for which the City Council has designated the Premises in accordance with section 520 of the City Charter.” Section 520 of the City Charter states: “No land acquired by the City for or dedicated to public park or recreation purposes … shall be sold, leased or otherwise transferred, encumbered or disposed of unless authorized by affirmative votes of at least a majority…of the City Council and … of the electors voting on such proposition at a general or special election … .”
In the absence of such a vote, the purpose to which the property is devoted by the City must be maintained.
Elings, a non-profit corporation, hired a for-profit group, the newly named Santa Barbara Tennis Academy, to manage the courts. Go to elingspark.org and click on “Tennis” to see their fee structure. These fees are not compatible with a public recreational facility. Who is monitoring this? High fees are currently limiting public access.
This is a dangerous precedent set by the City. Think about the City giving up your baseball field or losing our beach access to a private organization without oversight.
Please contact Santa Barbara City Council members and the mayor to demand a hearing on this matter. Go to the website laspositastennis.com and go to the “YOU” section to find the links. We must ensure elected government officials honor the charters that are established for the public’s benefit.
Comments
Outrageous.
Ken_Volok (anonymous profile)
February 12, 2013 at 6:40 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I completely agree. This is a terrible precedent and bad policy. Giving away public assets to avoid maintenance costs should be illegal.
Imagine if East Beach volleyball courts, and the local hiking trails were given away to non-public agencies that charged the public to use them. This is sooooooooooo wrong! Outrageous!
Georgy (anonymous profile)
February 13, 2013 at 6:25 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The lawn in front of Fess Parker's Red Lion isn't an identical situation, but it's similar. I don't know if anyone remembers that the city's agreement with Parker included use of the landscaped area facing Cabrillo as city green space available for use by residents in return for increasing the number of rooms in his hotel.
We don't really expect city hall to comply with the city charter, do we? If it did, one difference we would have seen is that Das Williams' seat on cc would have been filled by the person with the second-highest number of votes in the election Williams won, not by Randy Rowse, who was appointed by cc, not chosen by the constituency according to the principles of democratic government.
14noscams (anonymous profile)
February 16, 2013 at 2:55 p.m. (Suggest removal)
For readability, that second paragraph should be broken into three, and the following line should stand alone and not be italicized:
"Section 520 of the City Charter states:"
Sounds like the Parks & Rec Department screwed up by not having a council vote on this.
When I spoke to Dimitar (the guy who runs the tennis academy) he told me Las Positas would no longer be a public facilty once he took over. Those semantics seem to clash with the City Charter.
EastBeach (anonymous profile)
February 17, 2013 at 2:51 p.m. (Suggest removal)