Costa Mesa’s new definition of ‘local resident’ benefits Leinart football league

The Matt Leinart Flag Football League, a for-profit corporation whose K-8 players live primarily outside Costa Mesa, was effectively granted lower rates for use of a city athletic complex under a unanimous City Council decision Tuesday that broadened the definition of a “local resident.”

Council critics as well as a council member who in the end approved the change blasted the action, characterizing it as the city’s gift to a group that wasn’t upfront in the first place.

Before the council’s changes, the league was a for-profit organization of non-residents that should have paid $239 an hour per field to use the Jack R. Hammett Sports Complex. The group has for the past year avoided that higher fee because of a council-approved exemption allowing it to pay the resident rate, which, on top of the nonprofit status it received erroneously, had the group paying $25 an hour per field.

Under Tuesday’s new description of “local resident” — defined as children who live or attend school within the boundaries of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District — the league will no longer need an exemption to avoid paying non-resident, field-use rates because at least 90% of its kids fit the new definition of local resident.

The school district encompasses all of Costa Mesa and nearly all of Newport Beach. City officials say about 14% of Leinart’s participants live in Costa Mesa; most others are believed to live in Newport Beach.

Previously, “local” was defined as a Costa Mesa resident. The council’s change was applied to the city’s field-use allocation policy, an influential document that prioritizes use of athletic fields throughout Costa Mesa and determines how much users pay to rent them.

The council decision comes after Leinart’s league was determined to be improperly calling itself a nonprofit to secure the $25 hourly nonprofit rate. The league had been registering for fields in Costa Mesa and elsewhere under Leinart’s nonprofit foundation, not his for-profit business entity. Leinart is a former quarterback who played in the National Football League.

Once city officials discovered the discrepancy — first reported in an Orange County Register investigation — they ordered Leinart to pay nearly $25,000 in back fees. They based their figures on $77 an hour per field, the rate given to for-profit resident groups.

The payback amount is about half of the $50,000 the Register estimated that Leinart’s group would owe based on its usage of fields during a three-month period last spring.

Council critics argued that City Hall shouldn’t grant such favor to a group that hasn’t been honest.

Former Councilwoman Wendy Leece compared the situation to a “gift of public funds.”

Added activist Robin Leffler, “It’s like rewarding them for doing something wrong all along.”

Frank Albers, who works with Leinart’s league, said the organization did not mean to be deceptive, arguing “there was genuine confusion as to what rate we should be paying” the city. He also contested the 14% Costa Mesa residency figure, saying it was “much more” than that, though he did not provide specifics.

Mayor Pro Tem Jim Righeimer, who suggested expanding the “local” definition to include the school district boundaries, said it’s important that children from the area all play together. Many Costa Mesa kids attend Newport schools and vice-versa, he said. The two communities are very interconnected, Righeimer added.

“We’re a community,” he said. “We do a lot of things together.”

Councilwoman Katrina Foley called Leinart’s group a popular choice for families and credited it for giving nearly $80,000 to community organizations in recent years. She suggested allocating the roughly $25,000 in back fees to the athletic departments at Costa Mesa and Estancia high schools.

The council approved her suggestion and will consider the matter at a future meeting.

“I do think that the money could be well used and we could earmark it [for equipment,]” Foley said.

Councilman Gary Monahan said criticism of Leinart and the consequent fighting should stop. He said the community should realize that “this is all about the kids. It’s about getting more kids on our fields and more fields for our kids to play. The fact that we’re arguing with each other and at each other is just plain wrong.”

Councilwoman Sandy Genis echoed Monahan’s point but said she was disappointed by the actions of Leinart’s group.

“I would have hoped that the people being involved would be setting an example for our children,” she said.

On Wednesday, Foley called the Leinart incident “an orchestrated smear campaign by his competition,” Newport-Mesa Friday Night Lights, another popular flag football group that uses Jack Hammett fields.

In a Facebook post, she wrote that Leinart’s mistakes were “unintentional,” and that city staff should have noticed that the group’s rate was based on false information.

“That should have been the red flag to our staff to say something,” Foley wrote.

Both groups came under fire last year, but for different reasons.

According to Daily Pilot investigations, Leinart’s group was given preferential treatment by “senior leadership” at City Hall to use the TeWinkle Park Athletic Complex. The decision effectively booted nonprofit users of the complex out of coveted Friday night spots.

The groups were critical of the move because, according to their interpretation of city policy, they were supposed to be able to use TeWinkle over for-profit groups like Leinart’s league.

Friday Night Lights was accused last year of avoiding nearly $50,000 in fees to use Jack Hammett fields. According to top city officials, the league was deceptively saying it didn’t pay its executive staff or board members so that it could qualify for fee waivers.

City officials alleged that Friday Night Lights compensated its commissioner and thus owed Costa Mesa taxpayers back payments. The league contested the allegations but ended up paying back an unspecified amount of money.