As Municipal Budgets Shrink, So Does Majesty of City Halls : Newer Cities Forgoing Extravagance in Favor of Cheaper Quarters

There are no Corinthian columns or Greco-Roman ornaments at Laguna Hills City Hall--the municipal government operates out of a leased office building on a nondescript road near the freeway.

Residents seem intent on keeping it that way. Last week, a citizens committee studying how to use the city’s last parcel of public land recommended development of a park, library and recreation center complex, not a grand new civic center.

“In the last 10 years, I’ve had hundreds of residents approach us asking for more soccer fields, baseball diamonds and gyms,” said Councilwoman Melody Carruth, who helped form the city in 1991. “I’ve never had one person ask me for a city hall.”

Laguna Hills is one of several recently incorporated South County cities with modest, if not downright spartan--city halls.

“There are more important needs to fill in the community,” said Councilman Wyatt T. Hart of San Juan Capistrano, whose civic center consists of some prefabricated buildings on a dead-end street. “We’d prefer to fulfill other objectives for young people and senior citizens.”

Such sentiment reflects a changing view of government buildings as centers of public life and contrasts with the bigger-is-better mentality that produced the landmark city halls of many older Orange County communities.

Santa Ana’s old City Hall, for example, is an Art Deco gem with an ornate carved-stone entrance and a distinctive green tower that for years was the city’s tallest point.

Orange County’s last city hall building boom occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Irvine, Brea and Stanton each opened state-of-the-art civic centers.

To backers, such city halls help unify far-flung suburban communities, providing a central location for meetings and a symbol of government vitality and action.

William C. Mavity of the Woodbridge Village Assn. said Irvine’s $38-million civic center consolidates most city operations and harks back to old-fashioned government edifices of an earlier era.

“I’m from Peoria, where they had a massive city hall,” Mavity said. “You always knew where government was. It’s where I registered to vote. It represented government structure and order.”

Stanton Councilman Harry Dotson said he originally opposed construction of his city’s $5-million civic center on Katella Avenue. But the project was completed without cost overruns, and “it has become a nice addition,” he said. “It’s an invitation to the community to come in.”

Not everyone feels the same way. Stanton civic center opponents launched an unsuccessful recall drive against one councilman who backed the project.

And in Irvine, some activists still refer to their city hall--with its marble facade, cathedral-like council chamber and postmodern clock tower--as “the Taj Mahal.”

When the county’s newer communities incorporated in the late 1980s and early 1990s, many residents presumed that new civic centers would eventually rise as the fledging cities became more established. But faced with tight budgets and public pressure to keep government small, officials decided to keep a low profile.

Lake Forest, for example, leases commercial space for its city administration offices. Dana Point recently bought the building it had been leasing--a retail center with a video store downstairs from the city manager’s office.

Elected officials in South County say they are simply carrying out their constituents’ wishes.

“We are not here to glorify ourselves or the city,” said Carruth, the Laguna Hills councilwoman.

“A park and a sports facility are a far better reflection of the community than a multilevel tower,” she said. “The larger the city hall, the more costs and the more bureaucracy you have.”

South County cities can get by with less space because they contract out for many municipal services and have fewer employees than older cities. Laguna Hills, for example, has only 16 full-time employees and uses the Sheriff’s Department and Orange County Fire Authority for emergency services.

“South County has used this different concept of contracting out services,” Lake Forest Councilwoman Ann Van Haun said. “I think the community feels that’s a good way to go. It means fewer employees and [the need for] less space.”