Pledge saves concerts

A foundation’s pledge Tuesday night saved four of Costa Mesa’s six summer concerts at Fairview Park and a city-run maintenance program, but other city programs remained cut to save money.

The Costa Mesa Community Foundation pledged $38,000 to support Neighbors for Neighbors, a program whose volunteers use city-provided tools and materials to repaint destitute homes and clean up parks.

The foundation also pledged more than $4,000 for concerts in the park, which, along with $2,500 apiece from the police and fire unions, makes enough to put on a pared-down version of at least three of the concerts.

In light of the new funding, council members who voted to cut the programs last month changed their minds and voted to reinstate them.

Along with Mayor Pro Tem Wendy Leece and Councilwoman Katrina Foley, who were against cutting the programs, Mayor Allan Mansoor, and Councilmen Gary Monahan and Eric Bever voted to reinstate the concerts.

Mansoor and Bever also voted to reinstate Neighbors for Neighbors.

“The circumstances are different [than they were the first time around] and people have stepped up to support those items,” Mansoor said of his yes votes.

The approvals fell short of Leece’s and Foley’s full goals, though. The councilwomen wanted to see funding restored to TeWinkle Middle School’s after-school program, the city-run youth basketball and football programs, and others. Those programs’ budgets were partially cut.

The city also cut all funding for a van that brought games and sports to children in poor neighborhoods. The city also stopped contributing to high school grad nights and an exchange program that sends local students to Australia.

More than a dozen speakers encouraged the council to restore full funding to the programs, saying they prevented crime by keeping kids off the streets and created a sense of community.

Resident Shiloh Godshall said one child grew up in her neighborhood without parents. He lives with his grandmother, who works full time but can’t afford extracurricular activities.

Through the city’s free basketball and football programs, Godshall said, volunteer coaches have taken the boy places and served as good role models. Godshall said his grandmother cannot pay the $39 to $58 seasonal fee that the council approved.

Asked whether the boy might get in trouble without basketball, she said, “Absolutely, he will get in trouble.”

In justifying their no votes on reinstating funding for the programs, Mansoor and Monahan painted a dire picture of the city’s finances.

After using close to $15 million in reserves to cover the past year’s budget, and planning to use $5 million more to cover expenses this time around the city will be left with only $1.5 million in unrestricted reserves, they said.

And even those projections assume that the city can achieve millions of dollars in savings by eliminating employees and getting the rest to take pay cuts, and assuming that revenues don’t come in lower than projected, like they did last year, Monahan said.

“Every item on here is a valuable program and I have never argued against that…. Yes, these are very difficult cuts and everyone is going to let me hear about it, but understand what I’ve been looking at for the last couple months. That’s how bad it is in Costa Mesa. It’s really, really bad,” Monahan said.

Foley and Leece disagreed, saying that the close to $200,000 in annual savings were a pittance and weren’t worth the long-term consequences. Without strong after-school programs and free sports programs, Leece argued, kids will resort to crime.

“I see no justification for making these cuts,” she said.

In other news, the City Council unanimously approved an urgent 45-day moratorium on permits for new massage parlors and expansion of existing massage parlors Tuesday night, but not without reservations about how it would affect legitimate massage businesses.

The city has 54 massage parlors, more than most surrounding cities, and there is strong evidence that some of them are used as fronts for prostitution, police said.

Authorities asked for the moratorium to allow time for an update of the city’s laws governing the permitting process for massage parlors to close loopholes and comply with new state laws that take effect this fall.

Timeline

Background: Last month the Costa Mesa City Council eliminated several programs to save roughly $200,000, according to finance department estimates.

What’s New: Two of those programs were restored Tuesday night due in large part to funding from the Costa Mesa Community Foundation.