The basketball’s in their court

An adult basketball league that wanted to use the gym at the Costa Mesa Neighborhood Community Center for seven hours on Sundays was denied by the Parks and Recreation Commission without any explanation last week, but the league may have another chance.

Aztec Basketball, an organization that ran basketball games out of a gym in Santa Ana until it had to move because of construction, asked Costa Mesa if it could use the city’s gym, displacing a couple of existing programs that were sparsely attended.

Four of the five commissioners sat silently, neither supporting nor opposing Chairman Kurt Galitski as he made a motion to approve the request, so the request was denied for lack of interest.

“I feel as though a couple of the commissioners were kind of like deer in headlights,” Galitski said, adding that the commission at least owed the league and the community an explanation for allowing the proposal to die on the vine.

A walk-in basketball program attended by about nine adults every week and a walk-in volleyball program attended by about 12 or 13 adults would have been replaced by the basketball league.

The two programs cost residents $3 to play, which made the city about $3,500 annually.

The Aztec Basketball League would have paid $43,000 per year to rent the facility, and staff members said they checked with Santa Ana and found the program paid its fees on time and took good care of the gym.

The day after the meeting, Vice Chairman Mike Brumbaugh requested the issue be reheard by the commission.

He said he had nothing against the program and hadn’t made a decision on whether he supported or opposed the program, but wanted more information on how many Costa Mesa residents used the gym during the drop-in programs on Sunday.

“I feel bad myself. I think I was just too undecided on what to do. In the spur of the moment I couldn’t even think of what I wanted to say on the issue,” Brumbaugh said.

Costa Mesa blogger and frequent City Hall activist Martin Millard was the only person who spoke at the meeting, saying the city didn’t know whether the players in the Aztec Basketball League were Costa Mesa residents and had no guarantee that they were law-abiding citizens.

Recreation Director Jana Ransom said Millard’s statement was true, but the city also didn’t collect any information on the people who currently use the gym, so it had no guarantees there either.

The issue hasn’t officially been put on a future agenda.