Settlement, fate of Westwinds Sports Center on City Council agenda
September 17, 2011 2:00 PM
Brooke Edwards
City Editor
VICTORVILLE • The fate of Westwinds Sports Center and a nearly $500,000 settlement payment to the federal government will be before the City Council on Tuesday night.
Victorville’s dispute with the government dates back to 1994, according to the staff report included in Tuesday’s agenda. The Air Force Base Conversion Agency partnered with the city then to maintain George Air Force Base as it closed, with the AFBCA agreeing to pay Victorville to help with the effort.
In 2003, the staff report states the AFBCA commissioned an audit of how Victorville had spent the more than $3 million it received from 1994 to 1998. In July 2007, the government demanded that Victorville pay back $330,192. No payment was made, and by June 2011 the U.S. Department of Treasury said the bill had grown to $877,309 and was threatening to withhold grant payments.
Victorville was able to negotiate the settlement down to $350,000 by also agreeing to forgive a $147,000 payment for Air Force landing rights at Southern California Logistics Airport that the government had been allowed to skip due to the dispute. The City Council discussed the issue during closed session Sept. 6, according to the staff report, with final approval on the agenda Tuesday.
The city will also decide whether to continue funding Westwinds Sports Center at SCLA for the remainder of this fiscal year, and will discuss whether to reopen the pool at Dorris Davies Park.
A group of dedicated volunteers managed to stave off Westwind’s impending closure for a couple months, under a 60-day reprieve from the city that started at the beginning of July. They worked with staff to generate more revenue and slash city subsidies, predicting the facility’s racquetball courts, community rooms and gym could be revenue neutral soon.
For other items of interest on the agenda, read the full story in Sunday’s Press Dispatch. Get complete stories every day with the “exactly as printed” Daily Press E-edition, only $5 per month! Click here to try it free for 7 days. To subscribe to the Daily Press in print or online, call (760) 241-7755, 1-800-553-2006 or click here.
These items of up for discussion during the meeting that starts at 7 p.m. Tuesday in City Hall, at 14343 Civic Drive. A full agenda and live streaming video of the meeting are available at www.ci.victorville.ca.us.
Brooke Edwards may be reached at (760) 955-5358 or at bedwards@VVDailyPress.com.
At what point are our Victorville city Council representatives going to take this whole thing seriously? Where is Supervisor Mitzelfelt during all of these meetings? At this point he wouldn’t be missing any of the Victorville city Council meetings! As well as every other city Council meetings in the high Desert. He has got to start taking accountability for what is happening to his district. Over and over again he is proving to be more and more incompetent. We are having financial issues in Victorville, Hesperia, Phelan, Adelanto and he is no where to be found. Go figure. It’s more important that he uses his staff to campaign for him on County time via luncheons then to take care of the financial crisis of the high desert. We don’t need any more golf courses, unused government buildings, schools being built out in places like El-Mirgae where there’s not even enough kids to attend it to open it, or night clubs. The federal money that he received for the I-10 corridor project is gone and no one again knows where it went. No wonder the Federal Government is having issues with even thinking about giving us money. Mitzelfelt is bad for San Brnardino County and bad for for first district. How sad that us the tax payers get to get screwed grant money because he’s a moron!
Mitzelfelt sounds foreign. Has he been e-verified?