Parks: Bring on an audit

Alicia Robinson

* EDITOR’S NOTE: This week, Daily Pilot government and politics

reporter Alicia Robinson is in Sacramento to provide a firsthand look

at Newport-Mesa’s elected representatives. She will be checking in on

freshmen Assemblymen Chuck DeVore and Van Tran and see how state Sen.

John Campbell is adjusting to life in the Senate. Pilot photographer

Kent Treptow is also on the assignment in the state capital.

SACRAMENTO -- California state parks officials and supporters of

the historic cottage renovation project at Crystal Cove State Park

said they’d welcome an audit of the project requested by Newport

Beach Assemblyman Chuck DeVore.

At a news conference Tuesday, DeVore announced that he will ask

the Joint Legislative Audit Committee to look at the books for the

state Parks and Recreation Department’s roughly $21-million plan to

renovate 46 cottages at the coastal park.

The first phase of the project, which includes 22 cottages at a

cost of $12 million, was set to be completed in March but is now

about six or seven months behind schedule and should be finished this

fall, state parks spokesman Roy Stearns said. Because the project

also has exceeded its budget, parks officials recently asked for an

additional $2 million to finish the first phase.

To DeVore, the failure to stick to the budget and schedule are

symptoms of “a tremendous amount of waste and abuse” in the project.

When parks officials were initially planning the project, DeVore

said, they glossed over vital information that might have affected

how the project was funded.

“They soft-pedaled the fact that it’s a multi-phase project,” he

said. “They didn’t give us any estimate at all as to what the total

cost to complete [the project] was.”

But Stearns said parks officials have been upfront about the

Crystal Cove project all along. Some of the construction delays were

caused by the winter’s heavy rains, which were three times the

average for the season, he said.

He attributed the cost overruns to the fact that it’s hard to

gauge the extent of a historic renovation project until it gets

underway.

“The biggest problem we ran into was the unforeseen significant

deterioration we found,” he said. “You don’t know what you’re going

to find inside these walls, floors and ceilings until you open them

up.”

DeVore also alleges that the Crystal Cove project has sent

sediment and pollution into Los Trancos Creek. Stearns denies any

environmental degradation from the project.

Parks officials would welcome an audit, Stearns said, but he

doesn’t think it’s necessary because the state Department of Finance

already inspected the project.

Perhaps due in part to DeVore’s persistence, the Crystal Cove

project has become an inextricable part of the larger debate over

public land in the area. A battle is ongoing about the future of El

Morro Village mobile-home park, the southern part of Crystal Cove

State Park, where residents are fighting eviction in court. The state

has a $13-million plan to turn the mobile-home park into campgrounds.

DeVore was pushing two bills that would extend residents’

already-expired leases and bank the money for the cash-strapped

state, but he withdrew them Monday to avoid having them voted down by

an Assembly committee.

To supporters of the projects at Crystal Cove, DeVore’s call for

an audit -- as well as his support of new leases at El Morro and his

accusations of misuse of the land by Crystal Cove officials -- show

that he doesn’t believe the public should have access to the Crystal

Cove land.

“We are inclined to believe that this is sour grapes on

Assemblyman DeVore’s part,” said Elizabeth Goldstein, president of

the California State Parks Foundation, a nonprofit citizens group

with 60,000 members.

“We think this is just another way to attack state parks as a way

of avoiding public use of publicly owned land.”

The Crystal Cove cottage-renovation project is extremely popular

with people in the area and supporters won’t let DeVore’s audit

request get in the way, said Joan Irvine Smith, who was on the board

of directors of the Irvine Co. when it sold the Crystal Cove land to

the state in 1979. She also spearheaded efforts to turn the land over

to public use.

“Doesn’t bother me; go ahead; audit,” Smith said. “We’ll fight him

at every corner to keep him from stopping it.”

DeVore will ask the Joint Legislative Audit Committee to authorize

an audit at its June meeting.

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers government and politics. She may be

reached at (714) 966-4626 or by e-mail at alicia.robinson

@latimes.com.