Highest Bidder Backed for Mini-Golf Franchise : Sepulveda Basin: An analyst criticizes officials for seeking a new round of contract proposals.

The city of Los Angeles’ lucrative Sepulveda Basin miniature golf franchise should be promptly given to the highest bidder, a Solvang-based firm, a city budget analyst has advised.

A report released Friday by the city administrative office questions why city parks officials recently decided to delay award of the franchise.

The city’s Recreation and Parks Department might easily lose $500,000 in franchise fees if it takes--as conservatively estimated--nine to 12 months to solicit new bids and then award the franchise, according to the report.

The report found “no rational basis” for the decision to seek new bids, made by parks officials including the Recreation and Parks Commission, the powerful five-member body appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley.

The commission, which governs the parks department, voted 4 to 0 on Dec. 9 to seek a new bids for the 15-year franchise, a highly prized contract that has generated $3 million in annual revenues for the current franchisee, Malibu Grand Prix.

In addition to three 18-hole miniature golf courses, the company operates nine batting cages, bumper cars and a large video arcade at the site.

Paul Cauley, the chief administrative office analyst who wrote the report, said in an interview that he was dismayed by the action delaying award of the contract.

City parks department staff had initially recommended giving the franchise to Camelot Park Family Entertainment Center, a Solvang-based company headed by brothers William and Ronald Rameson.

But after a series of informal meetings with parks commission President J. Stanley Sanders, the parks department staff decided to solicit new bids, Cauley wrote in his report. Cauley said he talked to others involved in the meetings but that Sanders never returned his call.

“I think he played a key role” in the decision by staff to reverse itself, Cauley said Friday. “Obviously he had some sway.”

In his report, Cauley observed that Sanders had “apparently been contacted by one or more” representatives of bidders; that there was “no written analysis discussing the reasons to rebid” the franchise; and that the parks department was not asked to rebut charges--made by several disappointed bidders--that they had been disadvantaged because the city’s bidding process was confusing. The staff also was not asked to review accusations that Camelot’s own bid was fraught with errors, he said.

Cauley’s report said his own review of the bids, and of accusations made by the losing firms, found that the parks agency staff had correctly recommended that Camelot get the bid.

Because Camelot was proposing to pay franchise fees to the city far in excess of those now paid by Malibu Grand Prix, Cauley warned that a further delay in awarding the franchise would have a “detrimental effect” on the parks agency’s finances.

The city report will be reviewed Monday as two Los Angeles City Council committees meet jointly to consider the lawmakers’ next step in the miniature golf franchise controversy.

As controversy increased, the council voted Dec. 18 to review the parks commission’s Dec. 9 decision. The council has the power to uphold, veto or modify the commission action. It must act by Wednesday, however, or the Dec. 9 decision will be final.