Rosetta Canyon Park Over-Budget by $3-Million

By all accounts, the improvements to the City of Lake Elsinore’s Rosetta Canyon Park will be spectacular and with a price tag of $10-million it should be! According to a series of articles by the Press Enterprise, the original estimated cost for the improvements was $6.5-million; however, the cost has now ballooned to over $9.7-million.

Press Enterprise Articles below.

http://www.pe.com/articles/park-781298-lake-elsinore.html

http://www.pe.com/articles/city-807121-park-fields.html

http://www.pe.com/articles/city-813460-simpson-fields.html?page=1

In my review of the City’s Capital Improvement (CIP) Project budgets for the past few years it shows the City is over-budget by $3-million.

2015-2016 CIP Budget below (see Rosetta Park on page 8.)

http://www.lake-elsinore.org/home/showdocument?id=15491

2016-2017 CIP Budget below (see page 135.)

http://www.lake-elsinore.org/home/showdocument?id=15817

The most disturbing part of this out of control spending is that the City had to raid the General Project Fund of $1.5-million to make-up the shortfall. Monies from the General Project Fund could have been used to improve roads, homeless shelter, the Lake, trail system, bus stop shelters and other parks. Whenever projects go substantially over-budget other projects get short-changed. To me, robbing Peter to pay Paul is poor fiscal policy.

Jason Simpson, Assistant City Manager and Administrative Services Director, is overseeing the Rosetta Canyon Park project (Side note, why the Community Parks/Recreation Director is NOT doing this job is strange and unknown). In my opinion, the two favorite words of the top financial control person in any organization when it comes to such cost overruns should be “No” and “Hell No”. Mr. Simpson is wearing two hats as the Park Project Manager and the gate keeper to City funds as Finance Director. That’s a potential conflict as evident by Mr. Simpson’s comments to the Press Enterprise justifying the grossly over-budget project by stating…”Simpson defended the costs, noting the total is a little more than half of what it might have cost if the city had hired a general contractor rather than overseeing it in-house and hiring its own subcontractors”. To me, this is crazy CYA talk, as the Master Developer of the Rosetta Canyon track of homes should be fully responsible for paying all cost for the new park to support their sale of new houses. For example in 2012, the City conditioned Pardee Homes to provide a fully completed, turn-key, Canyon Hills Community Park, with the City specifying the required amenities and Pardee Homes required to build the park. The Canyon Hills Community Park didn’t cost the City a dime. All new development should pay their own way. The City screwed-up on the Rosetta Canyon Park deal with the Developer and now the citizens are paying for it.

It appears the City may try to justify the $3-million overage by attributing the expense to economic development. According to the Press Enterprise article…”City officials believe the expanded park will be worth the cost by attracting commerce from out-of-town teams and tournaments”. Of course the City provides no analysis to support this claim. In my opinion, a community park should be built for neighborhood kids and other local citizens. Local taxpayers should not be over-burdened to pay for facilities to support out of town travel-ball clubs. I sure hope local kids will have top priority in using the baseball fields.

This is a classic case of government under estimating project costs. This should serve as a prescient reminder to the City Council prior to approving $15-million this Tuesday to borrow & spend more money on the La Laguna Resort to the benefit of tourists who want to leisure at a lake with Harmful Algal Blooms. I doubt not to many citizen that live here, will camp here. The City's got it bassbackwards on this project, as the City's motto should be...The Lake First, Shoreline Development to follow. What do you think the chances are that Mr. Simpson has under estimated the capital project cost and over estimated revenues for the La Laguna Resort Project?

Good thing that Mr. Simpson has extensive experience working with financially troubled governments. According to his LinkedIn Profile, Mr. Simpson worked for the City of Desert Hot Springs from 2008 to 2013. According to Bloomberg news, the City of Desert Hot Springs almost went bankrupt the same year that Mr. Simpson quit.

See Bloomberg News “Springs Holds Short of Bankruptcy (Nov-2013) below:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-11-13/california-s-desert-hot-springs-holds-short-of-bankruptcy

Jason Simpson was also at the helm when the City of San Bernardino filed for bankruptcy and then quit.

Pat Kilroy (23 year resident)

Retired City Lake, Parks & Recreation Director