The Thousand Oaks City Council is prepared to grant $5 million to Conejo Recreation and Park District (CRPD) toward the development of a community park, which may be better described as a grandiose regional sports complex, featuring four to six lighted Little League fields.

In a national recession, threatened with fiscal crisis and layoffs, vital city services will be sacrificed for the benefit of contractors chosen by the CRPD.

Is fiscal responsibility the forfeiture of library staff and hours so 12-year-olds can play baseball at night? That only makes sense to someone whose crony is profiting from this madness. The newest addition to CRPD is John Short, president of Thousand Oaks Little League.

Coincidence?

CRPD has previously enhanced the Thousand Oaks Dog Park with a $160,000 lighting system that serves a handful of people and a few dogs in early evenings for four months of the year. They neglected to consider how few Southern Californians venture to parks in 40-degree weather.

The year prior, CRPD spent $15,000 on four umbrellas that, at best, provide shade for four dogs a few hours each summer.

The taxpayer would be better served were the council to burn the $5-million bequest and save CRPD the trouble.

That the council may best serve its constituents, it should adhere to the admonition of James Madison, father of the United States Constitution: "In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." Jeffrey L. Wissot Westlake Village