Scout Leaders Hope To Save Cabrillo Base
Scouts
From page A1
...Utah and Nevada, said the Hines and Mitchell.
"If they take the base, where will the kids go?" Hines asked. "Kids have to do something. If they build the marina I'm going to recommend they take the profits and build a couple more juvenile halls, because they're going to need them."
Pete Mandia, the Harbor Department's marina project manager, denies there will be any adverse impact on children if the marina and its recreation area are constructed.
"The Scout camp will be relocated to another area of the West Channel with beach frontage and of comparable size to the area they have now," he said.
The Board of Harbor Commissioners has made it clear it is committed to providing an overnight camp site in the marina's recreation area, and it will likely be larger than the site at the camp, he said.
Mandia said plans call for the camp to be shifted north to an area now occupied by Fort MacArthur's Lower Reservation, with 12 acres devoted to camping and 20 to recreating, including a launch and beach frontage for small boats. Some slips also would be made available to the Scouts, he said.
Mandia said how to allocate time and space to the scores of organizations that would want to use the area is a major problem now being pondered.
Hines and Mitchell also said the Harbor Department ignored the offer of a corporation to spend $300.000 upgrading the Scout camp if a long-term leavse for the land could be obtained.
Bert Keller, director of support services for the Los Angeles Area Council, said the offer was made a year ago by Hone Savings and Loan Association.
"This is the only facility and campground of its type in Los Angeles County that inner-city kids can reach via public transportation," said Ken Steindler, a San Pedro attorney and Scout member who has talked with Harbor Department officials on behalf of the Scouts.
Mandia said he had heard rumors about the offer, "But there have been no formal contracts that I'm aware of. I feel certain if there had been I would know about it."
He said the department has been soliciting public and private agencies and organizations to share in the cost of financing the marina project, and would welcome such an offer.
Mandia said any youth organization or its representatives entering into such an arrangement could feel secure and be assured of a lease long enough to permit them to recoup their investment.
Steindler said neither the Scouts nor the Harbor Department was unwilling to negotiate, and the Scouts' reaction to department plans would depend on what they were offered.
The Scouts' position is that they have had the base since the 1930s, he said, and have held it as a public trust for all youth groups.
He said the Scout base is the only available still water beach in the county from which boats can be launched safely.
Mrs. Hines said she wonders if the new location would be as safe with the addition of many pleasure craft in the area.
"There are thousands of boats there now," Mandia said, "and the addition of 900 more will not cause great congestion."
He said the West Channel has always been the site of much boating activity, and the proposed camp site will be just as good or better than the current location.
Steindler said the $1 million to $1.5 million the Harbor Department stands to make annually on the marina is not enough to justify displacing the 12,000 persons, mostly children, who use the Scout base.
"We should stop taking things away from children," he said. "I'm a lawyer, I see the bad ones in juvenile court. If the Scout base helps save just one of them, it's worth the money."
Mandia said as plans now stand, the Scout base would likely become the site of the marina administration building and a chandlery.
Keywords: Bert Keller, Cabrilloa Beach Youth Waterfront Sports Park, California, Camps, Councils, Fort MacArthur, Jeff Mitchell, Joseph A. Hines, Ken Steindler, Los Angeles Area Council, Pete Mandia, San Pedro Harbor West Channel, Scouting
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Scout Leaders Hope To Save Cabrillo Base
Image Caption:
Joseph A. Hines, camp ranger at the Cabrillo Beach Scout Base, surveys the site as his wife, Olivia, and Cub Scout leader Jeff Mitchell talk outside the ranger's camp house. Hines and Mitchell are opposed to the Harbor Department relocating the camp to make way for a proposed marina.
By Emanuel E. Parker
Staff writer
Members of the Los Angeles Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America say it's not true they monopolize the Scout camp at Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro.
The also say they hope to rally public support to prevent the camp from becoming part of a marina project to be developed by the Los Angeles Harbor Department.
The Harbor Department's proposed $20 million, 950-slip Cabrina Beach North Basin marina would swallow the 12 to 19 acres now occupied by the Scout camp.
Harbor officials have said they would replace the camp with a recreation area that "would be open to all youth organizations and not be limited to Boy Scout use as it is now."
Joseph and Olivia Hines, resident camp rangers at the Cabrillo Beach Scout Camp, and Jeff Mitchell, leader of Cub Scout Pack 611C, headquartered at Point Fermin Elementary School in San Pedro, said many organizations use the camp in addition to the Scouts.
The camp site is on city property operated by the Harbor Department, which leases it to the Scouts on a 30-day option lease. This means the department can reclaim the land after giving the Scouts 30 days notice to move.
Mr. and Mrs. Hines and Mitchell said many organizations not affiliated with the Scouts can and do use the camp after first making reservations at Scout headquarters in downtown Los Angeles. Applications are available at the camp.
Besides the Scouts, the camp is used by the Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), YMCA, YWCA, Salvation Army, Free Methodist Church, Utah State University, the San Diego Military Boys School, the Audobon Society, the Mexico Boy Scouts, Hobi Cat Sailing Regatta, Sol Cat Sailing Regatta, the U.S. Army, the Girl Scouts of America, the Sierra Club, the Mariner Leader's Skippers Association of Southern California, the Central American Boy Scouts, participants in the Little America International Cup Race, St. Marks Lutheran Elementary School, the Cabrillo Marina Museum, and visitors from Canada, Idaho, ....
Scouts -- A11, col. 4
Keywords: Bert Keller, Cabrilloa Beach Youth Waterfront Sports Park, California, Camps, Councils, Fort MacArthur, Jeff Mitchell, Joseph A. Hines, Ken Steindler, Los Angeles Area Council, Pete Mandia, San Pedro Harbor West Channel, Scouting
Copyright: This image is available for use under the Creative Commons - Attribute (CC-Attribute) License. Please credit the Area 4 History Project when using this media.