Thursday, March 21

Hahamonga Park sports complex closer to reality

By CAROL CORMACI

La Canada sports groups weary of scrambling for time on limited local athletic fields might, within the foreseeable future, find their teams playing near Devil's Gate Dam, providing the cities of La Canada Flintridge and Pasadena cement a deal on a joint-use agreement for a proposed sports field complex in Hahamongna Watershed Park.

The breakthrough was announced during Monday night's city council meeting by LCF Mayor Anthony Portantino, who said the council's Hahamongna Committee, on which he sits with Mayor Pro Tem Dave Spence, had been working on getting Pasadena to agree to a joint-use venture for three years. Hahamongna Park, formerly known as Oak Grove Park, lies within Pasadena city boundaries.

"For the longest time, people have talked about sports field possibilities in Hahamongna, and people talked about it so much that some people even said it couldn't be done...but we've been working on it for a long time and I'm happy to say that for the first time in the history of our city it looks like we're going to do a joint venture in Hahamongna," he said.

He explained the 50-50 partnership agreement would call for La Canada to pay its share of the design cost for a proposed multi-use sports field complex that would have a full-size soccer field and a baseball field. Maintenance costs, too, would be shared equally by the two cities on an ongoing basis for the duration of the agreement.

"I'm hoping to bring that to the City Council April 1 to allocate our half of the necessary design cost to do that deal," he said, without specifying a dollar amount. "Right now, it appears we've come to a meeting of the minds that it is feasible to do a joint venture and that's a project that people gave up on hope. I'm very optimistic that's going to work out...obviously it's subject to Council approval."

Portantino said he and Spence had also convinced Pasadena City Manager Cynthia Kurtz and Pasadena City Council member Joyce Streeter, with whom they worked on the proposed joint-use venture, to allow for the immediate sharing of a baseball field already established in Hahamongna that's not currently in use. "[Pasadena] agreed to let our Junior Baseball [Association] use that field this year and Junior Baseball is now finalizing those plans," he said.