City Council approves funds for design of amphitheater

This graphic is from a conceptual design of an amphitheater for Central Park in Menifee Town Center.

By Doug Spoon, Editor

Menifee City Council members on Wednesday approved a $454,000 expenditure for the design of a Central Park amphitheater structure whose project has an estimated total cost of $3.9 million, including construction.

After considerable discussion, the council vote to approve the expense was 4-1, with Mayor Bill Zimmerman the lone dissenting vote. Zimmerman, a former board member with Arts Council Menifee, said he was in favor of an entertainment venue that would promote the arts, but said “the final price exceeds what we may consider fiscally responsible. It’s too much."

“The responsible thing is to include a cap on the budget for a project," he continued. "The stadium they’re building at Mt. San Jacinto College was given a cap. Other school projects built in the city were given a cap. None of them were given carte blanche.”

This came moments after community services director Jonathan Nicks told Zimmerman that no cap had been established by an ad hoc committee including Mayor Pro Tem Lesa Sobek and council member Dean Deines for a project that began in 2016 with an estimated price tag of about $100,000.

“We had a budget previously, but it evolved over time,” Nicks said. “We started out talking about a single shade structure, but the council said they wanted to see more. We came back with a budget of $400,000 but the council wanted more, and an ad hoc committee was formed. We didn’t know exactly where the design would go.”

Five years later, the design proposed by design firm TY Lin includes a two-piece arching cover with lighting and sound system for the amphitheater in Menifee Town Center's Central Park. Those design drawings, approved by the council on March 3, were a “design concept” and not the actual design for which the $445,000 was approved Wednesday, Nicks said.

The March 3 approval was for a design cost of $454,000 plus $75,000 for environmental services, for a total cost of about $529,000. After council member Matt Liesemeyer argued at an April 7 council meeting that Central Park had already passed an environmental review, TY Lin eliminated the environmental fee and reduced the project total to its current amount of $445,103 – a net reduction of about $83,000, according to city documents.

Nicks assured council members that when TY Lin’s design is completed and approved, the construction project will go out to bid through the standard RFP (Request for Proposal) process. Zimmerman expressed concern that this was not done when TY Lin was awarded the conceptual design contract without competitors being allowed to bid.

“I prefer we use best practices that we should always use, which is a competitive bid process,” Zimmerman said. “I’m not comfortable with a sole source process. We have a list of consultants, architects and such that we can choose from, and they are all pre-qualified and are given the opportunity to bid through the RFP process. It may be too late for this project, but in the future, we should stick to this policy so we don’t have this concern moving forward.”

Deines and Sobek defended the project.

“They [TY Lin] brought back a premier concept,” Sobek said. “I thank you, Matt, for pointing out some concerns with the cost. Because you did, there’s some fund savings now.

“My thought going into this was, as a city, who are we? What are we known for? This gives us an opportunity to have a signature piece, a special venue for the arts.”

Sobek, Deines and council member Bob Karwin addressed the argument – made in a Menifee 24/7 editorial and by many residents on social media – that spending such an amount on a venue in that location at this time was unwise, and that the funds could be better spent on road projects.

Sobek pointed to a portion of the total project budget of $3.9 million -- an amount of $850,000 from two Developer Impact Fee accounts -- that City Manager Armando Villa said could only be used for parks amenities. No details were given regarding how much remains in those DIF accounts, what the exact limitations are, and how much time is left to spend them.

The remainder of the project budget includes $450,000 from the General Fund and $2 million in funds gifted to the city by Waste Management as part of a renegotiated services contract. Villa said in the negotiating process, those funds were designated by Waste Management to be used for "community benefit." The scope of that term was not defined.

Statements made by officials Wednesday night about the allowable use of those funds were contradictory.

Karwin asked Nicks whether the Waste Management funds had any restrictions on their use. Nicks responded that they could be used on any sort of project. But later, in defending the project, Karwin said a designated use of Waste Management funds was “in the contract.”

At one point, Villa said, “We have a lot of construction projects such as roads and bridges already in process, but we weren’t doing much in community facilities. We try to spread the funds out, not just use it on transportation.

“We are using $2 million of those funds to pay for the amphitheater, in addition to some restricted funds that can only be used for parks.”

Karwin received assurances from Villa that once the 2021-22 Capital Projects budget is approved at the next council meeting, the Holland Road Overpass will be fully funded – including $10 million budgeted to come in from regional transportation funds and other funds.

Karwin said “we aren’t wasting the taxpayers’ money” in approving the amphitheater funding, stating that the Waste Management gifted funds did not come from taxes. He also criticized the idea of using the money for smaller road projects, such as road pavement projects.

“It’s been my complaint since we moved here that we have no entertainment venue,” Karwin said. “To have a marquee location like this on a scale that will give us access to high-level entertainment makes sense. To break up the $2 million into little things all over the place … you do that and in five years, people will wonder what happened to the amphitheater.”

Deines said several times that if there were serious concerns, “maybe we should reinstate an ad hoc committee and take another look. I don’t want to go forward with something just to go forward.”

Later, however, he defended the project, saying, “I think it’s a great product we have.”