By Eliza Ridgeway

Joe Hu/Town Crier Rachael Kawasaki takes a jump on Yuki the pony in the newly refurbished lower arena at Westwind Barn in Los Altos Hills.

The volunteers planning for Westwind Barn’s future all agree that town money should be spent on the historical facility, but the spending got off to a squabbling start last month when a divided council voted to pay retroactively for repairs it had not approved.

A contractor completed $28,000 in refurbishments on a riding ring at Westwind in mid-May, apparently before receiving the go-ahead or an assurance of funding from the town or Friends of Westwind, the volunteer organization that manages the barn.

At the May 24 Los Altos Hills City Council meeting, some members of the Westwind Barn committee and Mayor Dean Warshawsky objected to using town funds for the repairs. The council voted 4-1, with Warshawsky dissenting, to loan Friends $28,000. In exchange, the town would assume management and priority at the ring, which Friends paid to construct several years ago. The council plans to recoup the loan over the next year and a half through deferring rent payments for the town’s horses

at Westwind.

Westwind committee members Nancy Couperus and Shari Emling objected to a renovation process that lacked official approval or consideration of bids from multiple contractors.

“When town residents start finding out how much money is being spent on Friends to bail them out of the very situations they’ve created, they will be outraged,” Couperus said.

“In hindsight it was poorly handled, the end result is that it’s done,” Councilman Jean Mordo said.

Councilmen Breene Kerr and Mordo argued that the town should pay for capital investments in the arena in the future, in exchange for taking over scheduling and priority access to the space.

“This lower arena was built by Friends of Westwind with their money, (and) under the new agreement they’re going to, at their own expense, bring it up to snuff and then gift it to the town, essentially,” Mordo said. “The town is getting a fantastic deal, getting a $100,000 arena for nothing.”

Warshawsky questioned making such decisions before evaluating how that spending meshed with larger town priorities. In the recent town survey, developing equestrian projects ranked low among resident recreation priorities.

The Westwind committee has tentatively selected an architect for barn renovation, and Mordo said he expected to bring a contract before the council in June. He reported that the committee planned to use a 50-50 mix of town funds and private donations to repair the existing barn structure and renovate the hayloft for improved staff housing, with a working budget of about $750,000. Staff housing at the barn was temporarily condemned last year for health and safety violations and has been only partially returned to use.

The committee discussed converting one existing apartment to a meeting room suitable for groups of 15-20 people, Mordo said.

The town accrues revenue, earmarked for the Westwind renovations, from the cell-phone tower located at the barn. Administrative Services Director Sarah Ragsdale estimated that the fund could grow to $66,000 by next year.