Culture

Midpen board cautiously endorses plan to maintain Bear Creek Stables


After months in limbo, the Bear Creek Stables in Los Gatos will live to see another day.

The historic stables in Los Gatos have for years offered horse boarding, riding lessons and camps. Though the stables are owned by the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, it contracts out its day-to-day operations to a third party, the Chaparral Country Corporation.

In the face of mounting allegations of animal abuse against Chaparral and what Midpen staff have called “significant escalating costs” of the stables’ overall maintenance and operation, the special district’s board was poised to decide in May on whether to preserve the stables in their current form, shut down their operations or some sort of in-between. But directors voted to delay the decision, instead opting to form an ad hoc committee to work for about four months on researching and proposing an alternate solution.

The ad hoc committee’s alternate solution, which the board approved in a 4-2 vote late Wednesday night, entails a phased approach to maintenance and operations, and would hand over some of those responsibilities to a nonprofit that would be better suited to fundraise and maintain the stables, such as the Friends of Bear Creek Stables, a 501(c)(3).

The committee consists of Midpen directors Craig Gleason, Curt Riffle and Karen Holman as well as a “self-selected” group of more than 30 volunteer community members. The group has been meeting regularly since May to research and come up with a presentation of their alternate solution to the board, one that emphasized reviving free public programming that would draw underserved communities to the stables and would be bolstered by funds from the stables’ ongoing horse boarding operation.

The public programming would “bring in a broader and more diverse public that includes not only the local equestrian interests that have been there in the past, but a much more wide swath of the public and underserved communities,” committee member Peggy Kauffman said at the meeting.

Rick Parfitt, president of the Friends of Bear Creek Stables, urged the board to approve the alternate solution.

“We know more details need to be worked out,” Parfitt said. “I hope the board can give its full support – with staff and the community working together, we will succeed.”

The solution that the board approved would cost the special district about $7 million, less than the $9.5 million-10.5 million it projected repairs would cost back in May, but more than the $1 million to $2 million it would cost to close the stables’ operation entirely. Part of the ad hoc committee’s charge was to come up with a plan to secure funds or grants to support the work needed on the project. The involvement of a nonprofit, the committee argued, would enable the stables to have access to fundraising that a special district like Midpen would usually not be able to take part in.

Midpen’s administrative office in Los Altos, was packed to the brim the night of the meeting. Dozens of horse boarders, equestrian enthusiasts and other community members turned …read more

Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment

      

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