City-sponsored Fairview Park initiative would require voter approval for future athletic fields

The Costa Mesa City Council voted Tuesday to move ahead with a measure that would require voter approval for athletic fields proposed at Fairview Park in the future.

The goal, proponents say, is to provide an alternative to an initiative sponsored by the Fairview Park Preservation Alliance that would give voters a say on several changes that could be proposed at the park, such as expanding its operating hours, installing additional lighting or building permanent structures.

The council voted Tuesday to officially place the alliance’s initiative on the Nov. 8 ballot but also voted 3-2 to move ahead with the competing city-sponsored initiative. Council members Katrina Foley and Sandy Genis voted no.

“The bottom line is people just want to keep the park natural and passive,” Foley said.

The city-backed measure must return to the council at a future meeting for a vote to place it on the ballot.

Mayor Pro Tem Jim Righeimer, who suggested the council write its own measure, said he thinks the one pushed by the activist group is an overreach that could interfere with the Fairview Park Master Plan.

“I totally respect people going out there getting signatures; I respect their hard work in doing that. I think they just wrote something that is way overreaching,” Righeimer said.

The city’s measure would require voter approval for future athletic fields proposed in the park.

Those would include things like volleyball courts and soccer fields but not trails that “might have multiple purposes, including bicycling, walking or running,” according to council documents.

Residents who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting said the city shouldn’t spend money or time trying to compete against the alliance’s measure. They pointed out that thousands of local residents signed petitions in favor of putting the initiative on the ballot.

Jay Humphrey, a member of the Preservation Alliance, said the initiative should “be allowed to go on the ballot without some cockamamie side thing going along that really in fact is designed to confuse the voters, not actually find a solution to this issue.”

At their previous meeting, council members asked for a report on whether the resident-driven measure might affect the city’s compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act as it relates to Fairview Park.

The initiative’s language “does not appear to prohibit the city from complying with its legal obligations under the ADA,” according to a city staff report.

It would, however, likely require a public vote on several projects already proposed under the park master plan.

The staff report says a plaintiff could argue that the elimination of projects authorized under the master plan, many of which would be ADA-compliant, may be discriminatory against the disabled.

Foley and Genis said that argument would be a stretch.

“If we look at some of the things that might not occur, we’re looking at things like stairs, curbs, retaining walls,” Genis said. “It’s just ridiculous to say that, oh, because we can’t put in a stairway, which by definition would not be ADA-compliant, that somehow we’re vulnerable to an ADA challenge.”