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In response to formal requests from legal counsel from the OC Board of Supervisors, the Attorney General's office has responded by advising that the blatant violations of the law be prosecuted by the local DA, who stood silent as Sheriff Carona became such a cancer that federal prosecutors intervened.
Is Jerry Brown out of touch? How does he think he'll get the votes of over half a million Democrats in Orange County if he continues to blow off the scandal surrounding the sale of the Orange County Fairgrounds?
The story is simple yet complex. Eight patronage appointees of the Governor run a state agency, the 32nd Agricultural district, which runs the Orange County Fair. Until scandals erupted, they gave themselves and their friends hundreds of thousand of dollars a year in free passes and front-row concert tickets. Sheriff Mike Carona's wife Debbie was a Fair Board Director, and there are reports of a concert where 300 of her friends had free tickets to a sold-out concert.
Earlier this year, the Fair Board lobbied to have the state sell the Fairgrounds as part of a budget package and simultaneously created a corporation to buy the Fairgrounds.
The details have trickled out, but it's an ugly story where the rule of law was a victim.
And the legal representative for the Fair Board has been a Deputy Attorney General, somehow silent or complicit while there was an open conspiracy to violate public meeting laws, as well as clear conflicts of interests, and failure to comply with laws regarding lobbyists.
Does Jerry know about the scandal himself?
Yep, I cornered him at the E-Board meeting, where he admitted he was aware of the issue. He can't deny that he is protecting his inept Deputy AG's, while ignoring a conspiracy to defraud the taxpayers of the state, with blatant conflicts of interests, a conspiracy to violate open meeting laws and illegal lobbying by Dick Ackerman.
The story started with coverage of the Fair Board by one local blog, where activists alerted us the stench and we've been writing about this since February. This OC Progressive post that was cross-posted at Calitics lays out the story.
The Attorney General's office is the legal representative for the 32nd Agricultural district, which controls the Fairgrounds, and the Deputy AG who has been at the meetings has been disappeared, with an email address that bounces back and a disconnected voice mail.
Democrats now have a candidate with a knit hat and a red and white striped sweater, hiding in the background of the picture.
It doesn't take too long using Google to find the law that governed the transfer of the surplus Army Air Base in 1958. It's a fairly comprehensive law that provided for sale of surplus property, with discounts or outright gifts if the land was dedicated for public use.
(2) The deed of conveyance of any surplus real and related personal property disposed of under the provisions of this subsection-
(A) shall provide that all such property shall be used and maintained for the purpose for which it was conveyed in perpetuity,and that in the event the property ceases to be used or maintained for that purpose, all or any portion of the property shall, in its then existing condition, at the option of the United States, revert to the United States;
This is exactly the type of pesky detail that made the sale of surplus property a non-starter when Schwarzenegger originally proposed selling off parts of our heritage.
You can't balance California's budget by selling stuff when you have to send the money back to Washington!
Unlike our sarcastic praise for Chuck Devore, I have to take a minute to say some kind words about Assemblyman Jim Silva, who voted against the sale of the Orange County Fairgrounds.
Over the years I've defended Jim Silva against accusations.
Jim is not articulate, and doesn't think on his feet.
But he is a man of principle, and was a strong supporter of County Parks.
He was also the only Supervisor who didn't spend his slush fund money - county tax dollars that went to a whole range of local organizations.As the county struggled to repay the massive debt from the bankruptcy, Jim just couldn't countenance these gifts of public funds.
And he voted against selling the OC Fair, while Van Tran and Chuck Devore voted to sell this crown jewel.
We never thought we'd miss him, but then we never thought there would be a President who would make us remember Nixon fondly.
if the City moves forward with the Specific Plan and the Fairground's value is diminished, the State will consider whatever options may be available to preserve the Fairgrounds' value.
That's the key sentence in a letter to the City of Costa Mesa from Teresa Bierer, Acting Deputy Director of General Services for the Real Estate Divisision of the Department of General Services' Executive Office in Sacramento.
Ms. Bierer reminds Mayor Mansoor that her department is planning to "obtain the highest return on the property, as the Legislature directed us to do".
So much for Costa Mesa's idea to prepare a Specific Plan that matches their General Plan designation, traffic limitations, floor area ratio restrictions, that reflects settlements reached in lawsuits over noise, and that mirror the Master Plan adopted by the Fairgrounds.
Just in case the City didn't get it, Ms. Bierer repeats herself,
"We are concerned that the Fairgrounds commercial value will be negatively affected by preparing and adopting the Specific Plan. While we are, of course, sensitive to local matters, we also need to be sensitive to the economic consequences that could result from this action. We also need to carry out the Legislature's direction to "obtain the highest, most certain return" from the sale of the Fairgrounds.
Fairgrounds opponents have figured out the right line of attack, and it's not listening to hollow promises from Assemblyman Van Tran.
Derail the Sale.
Demand that our local representatives carry a bill to undo this deal that already stinks. Legislators up and down the state are prepared to support a measure, but on a local issue, they won't act if a local rep doesn't carry the bill.
Part of the Republican plan this year to balance the budget included revisiting the Governator's ill-fated plan to sell off some of the state's most treasured assets that have been held in public trust for more than a century. It was obvious when that plan was presented that it was a typical magical solution with fantastical value estimates, with a complete failure to consider things like local zoning, deed restrictions, the rule of law, and the highest true value of these properties to the owners - the people of the State of California.
Every legislator fought back to protect the assets in their district. When we talked to Fiona Ma last week, she spoke passionately about fighting tooth and nail to keep the Cow Palace from being considered for this program. Every other representative in every other district fought to save assets that were held in trust for the people by the state, places like the Race track at Del Mar, the Coliseum in Los Angeles, the state Fair grounds in Sacramento.
Now, after the Orange County Fairgrounds is on the auction block, with a populist uprising, Van Tran and Jose Solorio are holding a public hearing, after both of them voted to sell the Fairgrounds.
Where were they when they should have been representing their constituents? And how do they spin their failure into something positive?
Out of the Orange County delegation, only Jim Silva and Mike Duvall voted to save this asset. When you're not as astute as Jim Silva or as ethical as Spanky Duvall, your hearing after the fact should be pretty interesting.
OC Fairgrounds Sale
Informational Hearing with Assm. Jose Solorio and Van Tran
Costa Mesa City Council Chambers,
77 Fair Dr, CM on Mon Nov 9 - 9 -11:30 AM
RSVP John Nam 714-939-8469 or john.nam@asm.ca.gov
In a budget filled with chicanery, the sale of the Orange County Fairground isn't one of the biggest frauds perpetrated by Arnold and the state Republicans. Arnold's illegal vetoes, the sale of part of the State Compensation Fund, the illegal diversion of redevelopment money, and the projected savings from reforms are all big lies that scale in the hundreds of millions.
So the estimate that the Orange County Fairgrounds will net the state somewhere between 96 million and 180 million hasn't received much attention.
And it certainly wasn't ever exposed to the light of day during hearings or debate that might have given any opportunity for dissenting opinions.
But from what we can gather, there are conflicting stories coming from the Governor's office, the Department of General Services, and local Republican legislators that indicate that this is one more big lie.
More on the meeting of the Orange County Fair Board later, but let's start with one intriguing question.
Who might actually bid on the Orange County Fairgrounds, pay top dollar, and still adhere to the current zoning which specifies institutional or recreational uses, includes a cap of 10 per cent building floor area ratio, yet allows a high traffic trip generation budget under the idiosyncratic Costa Mesa General Plan?
How about a racetrack and off-track betting complex?
A cynical Costa Mesa friend of Orange County Progressive tracks down an amazing coincidence in campaign finance reports. Bay Meadows, a throughbred racetrack operator, which closed their track in San Mateo in 2008, gave a $249 campaign contribution to Costa Mesa City Council Member Eric Bever. They have also contributed to Noreen Evans, chair of the bipartisan special committee working to negotiate a California budget. Noreen is listed as author of the surplus property bill that designates sale of the OC Fairgrounds.
Could be just an innocent coincidence, but it's hard do imagine anyone who would give campaign contributions to a wingnut Republican in Costa Mesa and a moderate Santa Rosa Democrat in the Assembly.
Meanwhile, Fair Board members, all appointees of the Governator, continue to imagine that they can somehow spend state funds to morph themselves into a non-profit that will come up with the absurd amounts of money estimated in Arnold's budget fantasy, or that their Republican friends will somehow give them this valuable piece of property for a pittance after they sold them down the river.
No city in California got savaged as badly as Costa Mesa by the budget deal, when selling the Orange County Fairgrounds became a part of the backroom deal slammed through the legislature during all-night sessions.
Every City lost money. Some will suffer from closure of nearby state parks. Sacramento and surrounding cities will take a huge hit from layoffs and pay cuts for state employees.
But Costa Mesa was singled out as a target to pay for Orange County Republican intransigence and the long-running Yacht Party mantra that we could solve our problems by cutting taxes, gutting services, and selling public assets.
The group of Republican legislators we sent to Sacramento from the OC is such an impotent crew of wingnuts, ideologues and slowpokes that they went along with the plan,voting to sell one of the crown jewels of Orange County.
Now Costa Mesa faces a challenge to respond to this sale under the direction of a Council majority that is as dull and witless as any you might imagine, nativist immigrant-bashers bereft of imagination and leadership. They have appointed a planning commission that's dominated by developers and ideologues that is ill-equipped to respond to this challenge. Add bully-boy supervisors like Moorlach and Campbell to the mix, and the political hacks on the Fair Board, and you've got a toxic stew.
Harman votes to sell/ Walters AWOL at first,then votes to sell.Correa Votes to Sell.
In the Assembly, a few votes against the sale - Silva and Duvall, but another overwhelming loss.
Remember when Arnold was at the Fair Grounds, dropping a wrecking ball onto a car to demonstrate his plan to gut the state by cutting the car tax. Good Times! Or when he committed the state to another two billion in payments to support the bonds that paid for cutting the four billion a year we lost by cutting the car tax?
Wonder how popular he would have been if he'd told us what would really happen. Worst Governor Ever.
There's been a real disconnect between the OC Fair Board's idea about buying the Fairgrounds and the State's proposal for selling it.
The state proposal was detailed in the Governor's performance review.
The state owns 190 acres in the City of Costa Mesa, located in Orange County. The land is used to hold the annual Orange County Fair, a summertime agricultural fair. Preliminary discussions with local brokers and appraisers active in the Orange County area indicate that its highest and best use would be for housing. They estimate the property would be worth $27-$30/per square foot, or about $230 million, if it were properly zoned, approved for development, and clear of all hazardous materials and existing improvements. If the land were developed to accommodate four to six single family detached homes per acre, it would allow about 1,000 homes to be built. Higher densities of more than four to six housing units per acre along with other development including retail, apartments and office space, for example, are possible with the cooperation of local government in the zoning and development process.
That 230 million dollar value has been scaled back to a range that will probably be close to 100 million in the current budget, based on the plummeting value of real estate.
But the idea of the Fair Board to start a non-profit corporation to buy the 190 acres with funding from a bond floated by the county or a consortium of local cities seems like a complete non-starter. The Fair Board voted to sell the Fair Grounds to a non-profit as a prophylactic measure, but it's hard to imagine where struggling local agencies would come up with a sum of this magnitude or how the fair would generate enough revenue to make the payments on 100 million in bonds.
And it's fairly obvious that Democrats in the legislature are just compromising with the Republicans plans for raising revenue here, starting in an area represented by Republicans.
The Fair Board members, appointees of the governor, should just accept the fact that Arnold betrayed them. Worst Governor Ever.
And don't be surprised if the bill exempts the proposal from environmental review and designates land use that Costa Mesa will just have to live with.
Nothing new here. We wrote Mimi Walters and Tom Harman:Fire Teachers, Release Pedophiles, and Sell the County Fairgrounds when we looked vainly for the Republican legislative budget proposal. This goes back to the Governator's claim that he could solve our problems by eliminating waste and fraud, and running the state like a business. He never told us that the business model was one he borrowed from Bernie Madoff.
Five billion in surplus properties, were identified, and the report included this.
The state owns 190 acres in the City of Costa Mesa, located in Orange County. The land is used to hold the annual Orange County Fair, a summertime agricultural fair. Preliminary discussions with local brokers and appraisers active in the Orange County area indicate that its highest and best use would be for housing. They estimate the property would be worth $27-$30/per square foot, or about $230 million, if it were properly zoned, approved for development, and clear of all hazardous materials and existing improvements. [14] If the land were developed to accommodate four to six single family detached homes per acre, it would allow about 1,000 homes to be built. Higher densities of more than four to six housing units per acre along with other development including retail, apartments and office space, for example, are possible with the cooperation of local government in the zoning and development process.
