DANA POINT : 3 on Advisory Board Resign in Protest

Three of the four members of the city’s Human Services Commission have resigned in protest, partly because the City Council ignored some of their recommendations for funding local organizations.

Dorothy Baird, chairwoman of the commission since its inception in January, 1992, wrote in a letter that she considers her resignation a “personal failure and a failure of vision and communication on the part of the City Council.”

“I’m very sorry,” Baird, 66, stated Thursday. “It had finally gotten through to me that the Human Services Commission would create more contention within the council than it was going to help.”

Commissioners Karen Casey and Mary Stringfield have also resigned, according to Shelley Velez, a city administrative clerk, leaving only Kristin Olsen remaining on the former five-member panel. Former Commissioner Mike Nemeth resigned last March for unrelated reasons.

The commission is charged with evaluating grant applications from South County human services organizations and making recommendations for distributing $50,000 in annual city funding. This year the commission evaluated about 38 requests totaling $150,000, Baird said.

This year, $9,000 in funding recommended by the commission was disregarded by the council, including $1,000 for a literacy group, a $2,000 grant to a Laguna Beach-based support group for people with AIDS and $2,000 for a home for recovering alcoholics.

Instead, the council gave $2,000 to a youth baseball league, $2,000 to a youth football league and $3,200 to start a boys and girls club.

The club, which didn’t even exist, was “the kicker,” Stringfield said. The club backer had not even met the grant filing deadline, Baird said.

“I’m sure it’s a worthwhile endeavor. I’ve got kids,” Stringfield said.

“But this group didn’t even have a nonprofit status. It’s not even in existence.”

“In hard times like this, we tried to deal with medical and critical human needs,” Baird said. “As much as we think athletics is fine, it is not the most important on the scale of these things.”

Councilman William L. Ossenmacher said he voted against the recommendation because he believed the athletic programs “more directly benefited the citizens of Dana Point.”