MISSION VIEJO : Sierra Recreation Facility Will Close

The Sierra Recreation Center was ordered shut down by the City Council on Monday in a cost-cutting move that will save about $200,000 a year and may foreshadow the sale or lease of all four recreation facilities owned by the city.

The three centers remaining open will cost more than $1 million annually to operate and the council renewed its desire for a report on the financial effects of leasing the buildings or selling them.

Although the council will not receive the report until next month, some council members expressed opinions on what they want done with the recreation centers.

“For the city to pay $1 million a year to subsidize a program that serves 2,000 pass holders is not possible,” said Council member Sharon Cody, who doesn’t want the city to operate the centers.

Mayor Robert D. Breton said he is “personally, irrevocably opposed to selling the recreation centers” and if the city chooses not to run the centers, would prefer leasing them.

“I’m not convinced the recreation centers have had sufficient time” to prove that they can pay for themselves, Breton said.

Mission Viejo began running the centers one year ago after acquiring them from the Mission Viejo Co. in exchange for an office building on Chrisanta Drive.

The four recreation centers contain facilities for swimming, tennis, basketball and working out with weights. With the centers subsidized by the city, membership dues are low--an entire family can join for $40 per month with no initiation fee. About 2,200 memberships have been sold serving 5,000 people.

Monday’s meeting was a marked contrast from two years ago, when the proposed closure of Sierra drew scores of angry residents and eventually sparked the city’s acquisition of four recreation centers. Only three people spoke against the closure on Monday.

The smallest of the four centers, the Sierra facility was by far the least used, said city recreation officials who noted that the next most heavily visited center sees about four times as many members.

Sierra’s doors will be shut in 30 days. In the meantime, city officials are negotiating with the Boy Scouts of America and the YMCA to lease the building.

“We do not do this joyfully, we do it painfully,” Cody said. “This is not easy for us.”