Youth Boxing Gym Faces KO After Panel Vote

Every weekday after school, dozens of boys and girls as young as 6 years old stream through an alley entrance into a storefront boxing gym in Huntington Park.

They bring the weathered building to life with the rapid-fire sounds of leather gloves snapping at speed bags and jump ropes slapping the ground beneath their bouncing feet.

Nearly 120 mostly low-income Latino children come from as far away as Inglewood to work off youthful energy, learn discipline and train for amateur tournaments across the country.

But the Huntington Park Youth Boxing Gym is expected to go silent in July after city funding for the program runs out. The gym, which was started by the Police Department in 1988, has become a victim of election-year politics and poor management.

The Huntington Park City Council last week voted not to renew the program’s $40,000 annual federal grant because gym operators have failed to register with the state as a nonprofit organization, a requirement to accept the federal money.

City officials called for an investigation of the gym after a council member and a movie producer touring the gym saw a stack of campaign material for two council candidates. Federal law prohibits campaign activity at federally funded facilities.

Gym operators insist that the campaign material was delivered by mistake and was intended for an address on the opposite side of the building.

But during their investigation, the city discovered that the gym had not been registered as a nonprofit organization.

None of the gym’s volunteer board of directors, many of whom have come and gone over the years, is sure who was responsible for securing the nonprofit status. But now, gym directors say they can’t afford the $800 filing fee and the $1,000 legal costs to register as a nonprofit.

“We just have the money to keep the program alive and running,” said Jesse Zamorra, the gym’s administrator.

Council members interviewed after the vote said they would reconsider their stand if the gym obtains nonprofit status.

For now, parents worry that the demise of the program will drive boys and girls to the streets after school.

“What makes me mad is why they would want to take it out on the kids,” said Felix Villareal, the gym’s longtime coach. “If they don’t like what I’m doing, get rid of me. But don’t take it out on the kids.”

Jose Soto, a Huntington Park man who takes his three sons and a nephew to the gym, said there are no comparable boxing programs nearby.

“I think it’s a bad idea to close the gym,” he said. “We are trying to keep these kids off of the streets.”

The Huntington Park gym is a large, musty room with worn wooden floors. It operates behind an ice cream shop and an employment agency. The walls are papered with posters and photos of such boxing greats as Muhammad Ali, Oscar De La Hoya and Carlos Palomino. An autographed painting of Mexican boxer Julio Cesar Chavez looks down over the gym’s ring like a patron saint.

The ragged punching bags are held together with duct tape, and the youths take turns using the few boxing gloves and head protectors. To pay for mouthpieces and hand wraps, they sell tickets to their own boxing exhibitions.

Huntington Park residents train at the gym for free, and children from outside the city pay $10 a month.

If the gym closes, some of the young boxers say, they will find another place to train. Others shrug, saying that they don’t know what they will do.

“It’s not right to close this gym, because it teaches little kids to box and stay off the streets,” said Ana Saguilan, 16, who has won several amateur competitions in the 132-pound weight division.

City officials insist that the children won’t be left out in the cold.

After voting Monday to stop funding the gym, the City Council instructed the Police Department to consider returning the boxing program to the city’s Police Activities League.

“The kids are not going to be hurt,” said Mayor Richard Loya.

But police officials say the department is in the midst of consolidating its youth programs into one facility. It is not clear how long before they could take over the boxing program.

“I don’t know what the delay is going to be,” said Assistant Chief Mike Visser. “Presently there are a lot of questions that I have.”

The Huntington Park boxing program was started in 1988 by former Police Chief Patrick Connolly, in part to improve community relations. At the time, two officers had been convicted of using a stun gun during the interrogation of a teenage burglary suspect.

The Police Department turned the boxing program over to community volunteers five years ago so police could concentrate on other youth activities. The volunteers who took over were supposed to obtain nonprofit status.

Since then, the program has narrowly escaped being closed several times.

In 1993, the city threatened to close the gym because the building did not meet earthquake safety standards. The following year, the city again threatened to cut the program’s funding because the gym did not draw enough city residents.

“The boxing club has had a number of problems for a number of years,” said Councilwoman Rosario Marin.

The gym’s latest problems began in January when City Councilwoman Linda Luz Guevara was taking movie producer Moctesuma Esparza on a tour of the gym for possible use in the filming of a boxing movie called “Price of Glory,” starring Jimmy Smits.

At the gym, Guevara said, she was embarrassed to find campaign material for Councilwoman Jessica Maes and council candidate Valorie Slaughter Bejarano, including signs and volunteer sign-up sheets. She reported her discovery to the city clerk and the city attorney, who ordered the material confiscated pending an investigation.

In an interview with a city investigator, Bejarano conceded that she left some campaign material at the gym but said she didn’t realize she was violating federal law.

Maes, however, calls the investigation a “political ploy” by Guevara, Marin and other critics who oppose her.

She said her campaign material was delivered to the gym by mistake and said she hopes that the boys and girls at the gym do not suffer because of it.

“It would really hurt me if they throw these kids in the street because these kids need something to do,” she said.