Spending fuels debate

Dave Brooks

Millions of dollars earmarked by voters for infrastructure are being

spent to repay loans on several city projects, including the

controversial Sports Complex.

Voters approved a measure in March 2002 requiring the city to

spend 15% of its annual $150 million general fund budget on

infrastructure needs, but a recent memo from the Public Works

Department shows that nearly $5.4 million of the fund is being used

to make loan payments for beach improvements, City Hall, an Orange

County Emergency Communications system, expansion of the library and

the Sports Complex.

The expenditures underscore a debate at City Hall about what

constitutes “infrastructure” and how voters intended the money be

spent.

“Any fixed construction that the city builds” can be considered

infrastructure, said Huntington Beach budget analyst Dan Villella.

“It could be a parking structure, sports complex, new lifeguard

headquarters; any real property improvements.”

Yet several members of the Public Works Commission said voters

were led to believe they were earmarking money to be spent on the

city’s dilapidated streets and sewage system, not repaying loans on

capital improvement projects.

Commissioner Dick Harlow said the current way infrastructure funds

were spent “was inconsistent with what the Infrastructure Advisory

Board recommended to the City Council,” he said, adding “we felt it

wasn’t what the voters supported.”

According to the text of the law, the definition of infrastructure

does include all “public buildings and public ways,” but the language

of the law says nothing about using the money to repay loans.

Instead, the law says money from the infrastructure fund “shall be

utilized only for direct costs relating to infrastructure

improvements or maintenance, including construction, design,

engineering, project management, inspection, contract administration

and property acquisition.”

Public Works Commissioner George Mason said he and others made the

discovery after repeated requests to learn how the money was spent.

“I think the idea was to at least keep maintenance levels the

same,” Mason said.

The infrastructure fund measure was passed by 57% of Huntington

Beach voters just one year after an ad-hoc committee released

findings that the city faced more than $1 billion in deferred

maintenance costs over the next decade.

“The infrastructure was in disrepair and that was what was sold to

the community,” Harlow said.

Instead, about $600,000 of the money is spent to pay off all of

the city’s contribution to the County Emergency Radio Communications

System. An internal memo on the financing of the project shows the

$80-million county system cost Huntington Beach about $5.9 million,

with $4.1 million of that money being financed through a 10-year

loan.

Another $2.5 million from the infrastructure fund is going to pay

off the Sports Complex and beach improvements on the south side of

the Huntington Beach Pier. Both projects were originally envisioned

to pay for themselves through the revenue they were expected to

generate.

Instead, the Sports Complex became a major headache for city

officials. Originally priced at $1.5 million, the cost of the project

skyrocketed to $16.3 million after planners discovered the site

needed to be cleaned up. The contractor hired to construct batting

cages and hockey rinks on the site later abandoned the project,

leaving it partially completed and the city holding the bag for the

$1-million price tag. Officials are still struggling to get the

Sports Complex finished.