Baseball Stadium Seen as No Minor Feat : Athletics: Three cities have agreed to do feasibility study. The tough part will be finding site, funds for stadium.

With support from three west Ventura County cities secured, an ambitious plan to bring minor league baseball to the county by April, 1996, must still overcome parochial rivalries and economic realities.

The easy part is finished: persuading the cities to consider building a stadium for a baseball team to be named later.

Camarillo, Oxnard and, as of Monday night, Ventura have agreed to spend as much as $100,000 on a feasibility study.

Now comes the tough part: finding a site for the stadium and a way to finance the facility, which could cost as much as $12 million.

Even as the Ventura City Council gave the measure unanimous approval Monday, some members expressed doubts that the project would ever be built.

“Do we get our money back if Ventura is not chosen to be the site?” Councilman Gary Tuttle asked before Monday’s vote. “If it’s in Oxnard, are we really prepared to fund an Oxnard facility?”

In Oxnard, Mayor Manuel Lopez said he would not support a final plan unless organizers use private funding, not city money, for the stadium.

“Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t do it,” Lopez said in an interview Tuesday. “I don’t think anyone in his right mind on any council would support the cities paying for the stadium.”

The issue of financing should be resolved in the feasibility study now approved by all three cities. A consultant is expected to tell community leaders where to build a stadium, how to finance it and how much return to expect on their investment.

Securing a team should not be a problem, minor league officials say. The California League has pledged to deliver a Class A baseball team if the cities deliver a stadium.

Communities have done that in other areas and found the minor league games a popular form of entertainment for families. But the baseball teams seldom pay back what the communities have invested in the facility, forcing cities to lease the stadiums for other events and fund the projects out of city revenues.

At a meeting last month, leaders from the three cities agreed to ask their councils to study the concept. All the cities have now agreed and will split the costs proportionately.

Camarillo City Manager Bill Little said the cities could seek bids for a consultant by the end of May and choose a firm by July. He expects a report and final vote by the city councils this fall. If the effort is successful, a team could be playing in its new stadium by April, 1996.

“It’s going to take several months to build, and it’s going to take several months to finance,” Little said. “You just start working back from April ‘96, and you don’t have a lot of time.”

But some critics are not sure that the project will ever get that far.

Tuttle predicted that selecting a site could kill the current spirit of cooperation. Organizers are looking at about 10 sites in the western county, most of them near the Ventura Freeway.

“I’ve got to think if it’s in Ventura, those councils are not going to fund something in the city of Ventura,” he said. “I’d be real surprised to see Ventura money going to Camarillo or Oxnard.”

Project supporters say the location shouldn’t stop a project with so much popular appeal.

“My No. 1 concern is we get it here in the area, regardless of where it is or who does it,” Oxnard City Councilman Bedford Pinkard said.

A bigger hurdle might be the cost of the project. In addition to Lopez, Ventura Mayor Tom Buford expressed concerns about the price tag.

“The kind of dollars we are talking about,” he said, “it’s going to be real difficult to put those kinds of dollars together.”

Phyllis W. Jordan is a correspondent and Constance Sommer is a Times staff writer.

NEXT STEP

In May or June, the cities will issue a request-for-proposal statement, seeking bids for a feasibility study for a stadium for minor league baseball. Community leaders will convene a meeting for baseball enthusiasts who want to be involved in developing the project. A date for the meeting has not been set. In July, the cities will choose a consultant to conduct the study. The consultant could report back by the fall.