KIDS THESE DAYS:

There is a scene in the classic holiday movie “Miracle on 34th Street” in which Gene Lockhart plays Judge Henry X. Harper, who is scheduled to hear the case of one “Kris Kringle,” a man claiming to be the real Santa Claus.

Harper is advised by Charlie Halloran, a tough-talking political consultant played by William Frawley, who suggests Harper take a long vacation to avoid getting involved in this hot trial.

When Harper says he will stay, Halloran says, “All right, you go back and tell ’em the New York State Supreme Court rules there’s no Santy Claus. It’s all over the papers. The kids read it and they don’t hang up their stockins’. Now, what happens to all the toys that are supposed to be in those stockins’? Nobody buys ’em. The toy manufacturers are gonna like that.

“So they have to lay off a lot of their employees — union employees. Now you got the CIO and the AF of L against you — and they’re gonna adore you for it, and they’re gonna say it with votes.

“Oh, and the department stores are gonna love you, too. And the Christmas card makers and the candy companies. Henry, you’re gonna be an awful popular fellow.”

I thought of this scene as I sat in the audience listening to Mayor Eric Bever and Mayor Pro Tem Allan Mansoor spin their exit strategy after painting themselves into a corner over the status of the city’s parks, a challenge that Bever admitted had gone on for three years and had somehow “fallen behind the water cooler.”

Their blunder resulted in a recommendation by the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission to convert all but two of the city’s 30 parks to “passive” status, meaning team play would be severely restricted.

Bever and Mansoor, neither of whom have children and who seem to have serious trouble understanding the challenges facing today’s parents, really just wanted to stop adult male Latino soccer players from playing in the parks by trumping up safety issues and turf damage issues.

As we discovered last week, however, complaints were few.

And instead of giving the commission clear direction on what they wanted to achieve, they set the commission loose, thereby setting a new standard for poor communication. When the commission finished its due diligence, it resulted in the sweeping recommendation we heard last week.

Before the meeting, Bever and Mansoor must have sensed the growing public outcry at this absurd change. They also realized, like Harper, that the last thing they should do is tell T-ball teams to take a hike.

On the one hand, if they rejected the recommendation, they risk upsetting a core base of supporters with the same narrow agenda (You must be familiar with it by now — it consists of rearranging the seats on the dais, preventing dogs from barking and going on national TV to highlight the city’s illegal-immigration problem to help scare away potential investors).

On the other hand, approving the recommendation would have a ripple effect through parents and coaches that would make the evening news.

In fact, that’s exactly what happened, as television station KTLA and radio station KFWB were there to cover the story.

I could see the teaser: “City bans T-ball teams from practicing in local parks! Film at 11!”

The situation got worse before it got better. In a move so unusual that Councilwoman Katrina Foley had to call him on it, Mansoor actually used his “comments” section, where each council member takes a few minutes to discuss local events near and dear to them, to try to have the parks decision moved to another date.

This stall tactic was so outrageous that even Councilwoman Wendy Leece, a parent, former member of the Parks and Recreation Commission and the third leg of the Mansoor-Bever-Leece majority, voted against it.

Leece is to be thanked and commended by all Costa Mesa parents for this support.

Later, all but one of a dozen or so residents spoke against what I’m calling the “Mr. Wilson Law,” named after the elderly, kid-hating neighbor in the comic strip “Dennis the Menace.”

Then, apparently realizing that although kids don’t vote, but that they all have two parents who do, it was time for Bever and Mansoor to justify their new positions. Using more “ums” and “uhs” than a drunk trying to talk his way out of a DUI stop, they tried to explain that, “Hey! This isn’t what we had in mind, folks! We love kids! Yeah, that’s it — crazy about ’em!”

In the end, the council decided to shred the recommendation, telling kids that there most certainly is a Santa Claus.

It was a miracle on Fair Drive.

STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident and a freelance writer. Send story ideas to [email protected].