February 09, 2000

By Mary Schubert
Staff Writer

PASADENA - The City Council gave tentative approval Tuesday to a plan for the development of the 300-acre Hahamongna Watershed Park during a 1 a.m. compromise vote before a nearly empty council chambers.

Hours earlier, members of a standing-room-only crowd including children in soccer uniforms had addressed the council for the second time in two weeks about the future of the park. About 40 people signed up to speak about the park, situated north of the Foothill (210) Freeway between La Canada Flintridge and Altadena.

The issue had been a contentious one for the past few weeks, with members of the public and the council debating whether the city's last large open space should remain mostly natural, or be developed for recreational uses, predominantly with athletic fields that are in short supply elsewhere in Pasadena.

The Pasadena City Council's early morning vote was a reversal of two previous 4-4 deadlocks. About 11 p.m., after a second vote tied, the council moved on to other business and those in the audience for the Hahamongna matter went home.

But about 12:30 a.m., City Councilman Chris Holden brought the park proposal back before his colleagues. A half hour later, in a 5-3 vote, the council gave the green light to the proposed master plan for the park. City councilmen Bill Crowfoot, Paul Little and Steve Madison voted no.

"We all agree that we need more soccer fields, and we're all agreed that we want to minimize the impact on the watershed," Madison said. Hahamongna is a basin where rainfall and mountain runoff can seep down into an underground reservoir, from which Pasadena gets much of its drinking water.

One part of the plan that will be considered involves converting nine holes of a Frisbee golf course into a multipurpose field, and finding another spot in Hahamongna to relocate those nine holes. The park is widely known for its 18-hole "disc golf" course, one of the first of its kind in the nation.

In its action, the council also directed city staff members to come up with a plan to pay for developments at the park and for its ongoing operation and maintenance.

Finally, the council said that all proposed recreational, water conservation and other uses for the park must be studied for their environmental impacts. That evaluation likely will be complete by next January, said Rosa Laveaga, a city parks supervisor who has been overseeing the Hahamongna plans.

The version of the park plan that the council endorsed early Tuesday would include four soccer fields, plus a fifth large field that could be converted into two smaller fields.

Two weeks ago, the council rejected the original plan that contained four fields, asking its staff to find room in the park for up to a dozen fields.

"The idea of 12 fields or 16 fields is not something that the majority of this council is willing to do to Hahamongna ... changing it from a natural park to a recreational park," City Councilman Steve Haderlein remarked during the debate.

"The community in general is looking to Hahamongna being kept as open space," Haderlein added Tuesday afternoon.

Little said he didn't like the scaled-back number of soccer fields in the latest version of the plan.

"We're finally being asked to put our resources where they belong: to the kids of this community," Little said. "I've been willing to compromise down from 12 fields, but I can't support this plan."

Meanwhile, the council asked representatives of the city and the Pasadena Unified School District to look for places across town where additional sports fields can be created, including at district schools.

While it was an uncommon move to resume a discussion from earlier in the night and take another vote long after the first two, City Attorney Michele Beal Bagneris said it was perfectly legal for the council to do so.

"As long as it's still the same meeting, they can take action on what's on the agenda," Beal Bagneris said.