Two fight budget cuts

Costa Mesa Mayor Pro Tem Wendy Leece and Councilwoman Katrina Foley are hoping to change some minds on the council and reinstate several programs that were recently cut to chip away at the city’s projected multimillion-dollar deficit.

Among the programs cut completely are a volunteer home and park renovation program, a series of six summer concerts in Fairview Park and a van that carries youth leaders, sports equipment and games to poor neighborhoods. The council also decided to stop contributing to high school grad nights and an exchange program that sends local kids to Australia, and it scaled back its contributions to city-run youth sports programs and a TeWinkle Middle School after-school program.

Altogether the city estimates that the program cuts Leece and Foley want to undo will save about $200,000 per year in direct costs. Since the decisions were made, the Costa Mesa Community Foundation and the police and fire unions have come forward and pledged a total of $9,300 to support the concerts, which carry a total cost of about $30,000.

The two councilwomen were against most of the propositions when they passed, but they were outvoted by Mayor Allan Mansoor and Councilmen Gary Monahan and Eric Bever.

“There are possibilities that based on community input, and based on the funding sources now available, that someone might change their mind,” Foley said.

Proponents of the cuts said that even though some of the programs would undoubtedly be missed, reasonable substitutes exist for a few of them, like the after-school and sports programs, and others were luxuries that the city couldn’t afford during a recession.

The council will also take up the subject of day-laborer regulation. Last year Bever brought the issue to the forefront, saying he would like stricter controls put on people trying to solicit work on street corners like the city of Orange.

Orange has a center where day laborers can legally congregate — Costa Mesa used to have one, but shut it down years ago on a controversial council vote — and prohibits them from soliciting on streets where parking is forbidden.