High Desert Won’t Get Promised Sports Center : Antelope Valley: Proposition A flyers said the $4.6-million facility would be funded. But it was cut from the measure’s project list months before.

A $4.6-million Antelope Valley sports center promised in campaign literature by backers of the Proposition A parks assessment measure approved in November won’t be built after all, Lancaster and Palmdale officials have learned.

The mayor of Palmdale on Monday said he considers the post-election revelation as an indication that the Antelope Valley is still considered the stepchild of Los Angeles County.

“There’s some hard feelings up here,” Mayor Jim Ledford said. “The county looks for our support up here, yet we have to fight to get our share of the resources.”

Proposition A, a $540-million assessment, received the support of 64% of voters in the Nov. 3 election. Literature widely distributed by the measure’s backers prior to the election listed a $4.6-million athletic complex in the Lancaster-Palmdale area as one of the specific projects that Proposition A would fund.

In fact, in an interview days before the election, Yes on A campaign director Esther Feldman said the remote area particularly needed such a complex.

But after the election, Antelope Valley officials learned that the sports facility had been removed from the list of proposed projects several months before the election as part of an overall scaling back of the measure. The appropriate changes were made in the lengthy text of the initiative, but not in promotional materials that continued to be circulated up until the election.

“We made an error and no one caught it,” Feldman said.

The informational material should have stated that the funds would go toward the building of a sports center in Castaic, she said.

But Ledford said that in addition to the incorrect literature, Palmdale officials were never informed in discussions with Proposition A backers that the facility would not be built in the area.

“I don’t know if there was a deception with this, but I just find it funny that we weren’t notified prior to the vote,” he said.

Lancaster City Councilman George Runner called the news “a disappointment to us and a surprise.”

“We were hoping the citizens of the Antelope Valley, particularly since many of them live in unincorporated areas, would be able to benefit from the sports facility,” Runner said. “Now, many of them are going to be paying that tax but won’t enjoy the benefits.”

The money to pay for projects in the measure will come from property assessments based on size of the property and its use, with assessments averaging about $12.50 a year for single-family houses and about $108 for a three-story office building. If the County Board of Supervisors agrees, bonds will be sold to provide the funding soon, and then be repaid as assessments are made over the next 22 years.

Only 48.9% of Lancaster voters supported Proposition A, while the measure passed by 52.1% in Palmdale.

Neither area came up completely dry on the Proposition A funding front. Lancaster still is to receive $1.86 million for the establishment of a prime desert woodland preserve, and another $1.3 million for park improvement. Palmdale expects to get about $1.4 million in park improvement funding.

But officials in both cities say that a sports facility is badly needed in the area.

Lyle Norton, the parks and recreation director for the city of Lancaster, said he learned at a post-election meeting that the county funds wouldn’t be available. He said he had planned to discuss with county officials the possibility of pooling resources to build a jointly owned sports facility.

Even confronted with the lack of Proposition A funding, Lancaster still hopes to proceed on its own with plans to build a sports center capable of holding soccer and softball tournaments. A task force appointed by the City Council plans to submit its draft report to the council by Christmas. Until then, no information on the size or source of funding for the proposed project will be released, Norton said.

Last April, a Palmdale measure to build a $25-million sports complex was soundly defeated by voters. Ledford said there are no plans to resurrect the proposal there on a smaller scale.

BACKGROUND

Proposition A, also known as the Safe Neighborhood Parks Act, passed on a 64%-36% vote in November. Among the measure’s projects designated for the northern region--which includes the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys--are the reopening of a swimming lake at Hansen Dam near Pacoima at a cost of $10 million; $6 million to purchase and develop trails around the rim of the San Fernando Valley; and $2.48 million for the city of Santa Clarita’s plan to build a trail along the banks of the Santa Clara River. Proposition A also increases the power of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a major backer of the measure. The conservancy stands to receive about $45 million in direct funding and will play a role in spending virtually all of the $540 million raised over the next 22 years.