Editorial:

It doesn’t sound so unreasonable.

In fact, it seemed like the most innocuous of requests.

A Santa Ana adult basketball league asked Costa Mesa’s Parks and Recreation Commission for permission to use the gym at the Costa Mesa Neighborhood Community Center on Sundays.

So Commissioner Kurt Galitski made a motion to approve the Aztec Basketball League’s request.

Crickets.

The rest of the commissioners sat in silence and the motion died for lack of a second.

“I feel as though a couple of the commissioners were kind of like deer in headlights,” Galitski said after the failed motion. He felt the commission owed the league and the community some sort of explanation.

He was right.

Especially when you consider the Sunday drop-in program draws just an average of 22 players, only half of whom are residents. The program makes about $3,500 annually.

The Aztec Basketball League will pay $43,000 annually to rent the gym. That’s a great deal, especially when you consider about half the league’s teams include Costa Mesa residents. Two other Costa Mesa teams wanted to join but couldn’t because of lack of space in Santa Ana, and there’s more room in the Costa Mesa gym.

We’re happy to report the commission rebounded its air ball, but we’re still puzzled why it took so long. We would have understood if the commissioners who weren’t certain about the proposal had just asked right there to table the motion until their staff could find out more about it. But to just sit mute? Let’s hope this was a fluke.

These days, with money for government programs so scarce, we need political leaders who are paying very close attention to the bottom line to preserve as many services as possible. It would have been a terrible shame if our Parks and Recreation Commission passed up a chance to make a $40,000 profit while providing more service to local residents.