Senior center showdown heats up

Opponents of a proposed senior center in Central Park hammered stakes and strung yellow tape Saturday to create a mock-up of the future building.

“The point is to give a much better sense to people passing by to really see how big this building is and the parking lot that’s proposed,” said environmentalist Mark Bixby of the group Save Central Park, which opposes the proposed park site.

The City Council is considering construction of the 45,290-square-foot senior center on five of the 14 acres of undeveloped land west of the park at Goldenwest and Talbert streets. The center will cost an estimated $23 million.

Bixby is supporting the Save Central Park group because he believes there shouldn’t be any development in Central Park.

“I would like Central Park to be preserved as open space,” he said.

Supporters of the proposed site say the center will occupy only five acres of the 356-acre park next to the disc golf course and equestrian center, and that there are no plans for development. The site has open turf, a family picnic area, parking lot, restroom and a tot lot.

“It’s not going to hurt the park,” said Norma Brandel Gibbs, a former Huntington Beach mayor who supported a successful bond measure in the 1970s to prevent development of the park. “We already saved the park.”

The City Council must decide by July 3 whether construction of the senior center at the proposed site should be placed on the November ballot ? an issue that generates strong opinions on both sides.

“I am disgusted some people don’t even want to put it on the ballot,” said Council on Aging Chairman Ralph Bauer.

Bauer, former Huntington Beach mayor, said people should have the right to vote on it and decide whether they want the new senior center in Central Park.

Bauer said they’re working with the City Council to convince them to put it on the ballot.

“You don’t have to be against or for it to put it on the ballot,” he said.

The Save Central Park group disagrees.

“We think it’s premature,” Bixby said. The City Council or the people of Huntington Beach shouldn’t be asked to make an important decision without the necessary facts, he said.

Bixby said a 1999 environmental impact report on Central Park marks the site as a raptor-foraging habitat.

“If you destroy the raptor habitat, you need to replace it elsewhere,” Bixby said.

But none of the senior center proponents have explained or acknowledged the issue of replacing the raptor habitat, he said.

The second choice for a site new senior center is about a block away, at Ellis Avenue and Goldenwest Street, also within the park and also opposed by the Save Central Park group.

Both groups have set up websites to disseminate more information.

Bauer said the Council on Aging has received about 300 e-mails of support on its website at www.soshb.com.