Fowl Civic Flap : Wildlife: Pigeon-racing club’s desire to use San Marcos park flies in the face of property group. Councilman Smith says brouhaha is a ‘political ploy.’

In presidential politics, they attack a candidate’s wife. In San Marcos politics, they go after his pigeons.

At least that’s the contention of City Councilman W.H. (Corky) Smith.

Smith says he and his birds are in the cross hairs of a small group of residents who are all aflutter over a request by his pigeon-racing club to use a corner of Walnut Grove Park for its activities.

“Anybody with any intelligence would realize that it has nothing to do with the pigeons or the little club,” said Smith, who after 12 years on the San Marcos City Council is seeking reelection this November to a fourth term. “It has something to do with the coming election. . . . It’s a political ploy.”

Elaine Coleman, a member of the Twin Oaks Valley Property Owners Assn., denied that her group’s efforts were politically or pigeon-motivated. Coleman said the group is concerned that the private club would be allowed free use of public property and would disrupt the peaceful park.

“I think I would object if it was rabbits, if it was guns, if it was the Ku Klux Klan--some kind of private thing coming onto city property,” Coleman said. “I just don’t see the benefits that the city is going to get out of this.”

All the flapping started after J.P. Weinel, president of the Palomar Racing Pigeon Club, asked city officials if the club could put its clubhouse, a 12-by-24-foot portable building, in a corner of Walnut Grove Park.

The club is looking for a new place to nest because its previous location in San Marcos was in the path of a road-widening project. As part of its request, the club is offering to let the public use the building on non-racing days.

With no significant environmental impact seen, city officials determined the request could be dealt with at an administrative hearing that included Weinel and residents of the immediate area. At that hearing, held last week, Coleman and three others raised their objections.

Coleman said the association’s primary concern is that the city is setting a dangerous precedent by allowing a private organization to locate a building on city property. Before you know it, she said, there will be other little buildings belonging to other organizations lining the park.

The other concern among residents, she said, is that the pigeon racers are going to bring disturbing traffic, noise and who knows what else--maybe even disease from the birds--to their regular meetings.

Coleman also said she was suspicious that city officials were trying to rush approval of the request, saying information from the city staff differed from what came out at a hearing last week.

A staff report initially said the birds would have identification tags put on them outdoors. But at the meeting, city officials said the birds would be tagged indoors.

Because of the residents’ objections, members of the city’s Community Services Commission have asked to take another look at the proposal. Another administrative hearing is scheduled for today.

As of Monday, it had not been decided whether the issue should be aired at a public hearing before the city Planning Commission, said Craig Sargent-Beach, the city’s assistant director of community services.

Sargent-Beach said allowing the pigeon club to have its building in the park would not be setting a precedent since other organizations already are allowed use of the public property, including a horse-riding club whose shows draw more than 100 cars and trailers. The Optimists Club also has a building in the park used for meetings and events, he said.

The pigeon club’s 20 or so active members get together 22 times a year. Each member brings as many as 15 pigeons in cages to the clubhouse. The birds are tagged and placed in a trailer driven to Riverside County or some other faraway location, where the birds are released.

After the pigeons return to their owners, usually by the next day, the club members meet again at the clubhouse to record flying times and crown a winner. Smith said each meeting lasts two to three hours in the early evening.

The birds are never released at the clubhouse, he said. Plus, they don’t fly to the clubhouse but to members’ homes, he said.

Walnut Grove Park is the site of an annual Chili Cook-off in June and will be the site this October of a renaissance fair sponsored by the San Marcos Chamber of Commerce. Both events draw hundreds of people. The Twin Oaks Valley group has objected to both.

“The bottom line,” Smith said, “is that they don’t want anything to happen there.”

But if the City Council election wasn’t coming up in about two months, Smith said, he doubts there would have been any objection to the clubhouse, which he likened in size to a bedroom.

“It’s a strange issue to have an election over,” he said.