Downtown Site for Westdome Is Facing City Council Defeat

A majority of Santa Ana City Council members said Thursday that they would vote next week to kill plans to build a $40-million Westdome arena downtown, bringing angry responses and hints of legal action from the project’s four developers.

The council members’ decision dealt a severe blow to the city’s hopes of having a sports arena that would be available for the 1986-87 National Basketball Assn. season and that could attract concerts, ice shows and circuses. However, city officials argued that the arena can still be built elsewhere in the city, and they stressed their support for the concept, as long as the arena is not built in the downtown area.

Mayor Daniel E. Griset said he decided to withdraw his support after receiving a letter from the Washington Square Neighborhood Assn. stating its unequivocal opposition to the project, no matter what plans were made to deal with such problems as increased traffic, pollution and noise. “I will be presenting this letter to the council at the Monday evening meeting and asking them to reconsider the decision to select the downtown site as the leading arena site,” Griset said.

However, the developers said they thought Griset’s move was a political maneuver to end recent turmoil in the city arising out of the council’s decisions on Westdome and other matters before Griset begins a campaign for a state Assembly seat. “I think disappointment would be a light adjective to use,” said Westdome partner Allan Durkovic. “ ‘Stabbed in the back’ might be a better phrase.”

Robert Osbrink, another partner in the project, noted that former Mayor Gordon Bricken had become a critic of Westdome after he was defeated in the 1984 election despite being a strong proponent of it while in office. “So we’ve become a football in three or four people’s political aspirations,” Osbrink said. “This is serious, serious business, and there are serious ramifications.”

Plan Meeting Friday

Durkovic and another partner, Don Oliphant, agreed with Osbrink and said they would meet today to discuss their next move. They said legal action is a possibility. Oliphant said the council members’ decision would effectively scrap the city’s plans for a sports arena, adding that the city has already seen other major projects, such as South Coast Plaza, the Pacific Amphitheatre and the Performing Arts Center, go to other cities. “This will just be another missed opportunity,” he said.

Councilmen Wilson B. Hart, Robert W.Luxembourger and Dan Young, in addition to Griset, said they would vote against the downtown site. There are seven members, including Griset, on the City Council. Young cast the lone “no” vote last month when the council approved bond financing for the downtown project. It is not clear whether tax laws will allow the bond financing to be transferred to an arena project in another part of the city.

Griset denied that his decision was rooted in politics, saying that he was motivated only by the project’s lack of support in the city and by the Washington Square residents’ opposition.

Sara Broadbent, Washington Square Neighborhood Assn. president, called the council members’ stance “great news.” She said the neighborhood residents had come to the conclusion that “there were just some things that couldn’t be mitigated.” She said plans to erect barricades and provide residents with parking permits for their neighborhood streets were considered unacceptable.

Broadbent stressed that the residents aren’t supportive of Save Our Stadium, a group that has worked to try to prevent the destruction of Santa Ana Stadium to make way for Westdome. She said the association would like to see some other use made of the Civic Center Drive-Flower Street site, adding that traffic around the stadium and the noise from events being held there have meant that it “has not always been a good neighbor.”

However, supporters of the pro-stadium group were overjoyed Thursday by the council members’ stance. Pete Major, who agreed with the developers that the officials’ decision was based on politics, said he couldn’t wait to see the Westdome project go elsewhere.

“I hope they (the council members) vote on it Monday and kill it so I don’t ever have to hear about it again,” he said of the proposal to build Westdome downtown.

Griset said he believes the developers have been slow to build up community support and to help the city find solutions to problems arising out of the project. He said he hopes they can continue with plans for the project by placing it on another site. Two other sites, one at MacArthur Boulevard and Main Street and the other now occupied by a cement production factory at MacArthur and Harbor boulevards, were selected along with the downtown location in city-sponsored studies.

‘Heated’ Conversation

However, Griset said a telephone conversation with Oliphant before his announcement on Thursday was “heated” and that the developer had said he would be “very vindictive” in response. Oliphant admitted making that statement, but he said that it had been made in anger.

The developers, who said they have committed “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to the project since getting into it three years ago, added that they think Griset is incorrect about community support, stressing that they have collected about 2,500 signatures of support from residents in two weekend campaigns. Durkovic noted that the business community has been very supportive and that studies have predicted the project would be of great benefit to the city.

“What has been overlooked when you get into the political aspects of it are the merits of the project,” Durkovic said. “The arena would create jobs; it would create revenues. I don’t care what you say, there would be civic pride; there would be national recognition. All these things are important. It would bolster the image of Santa Ana. I think that all this has been lost in the politics that are taking over.”

‘Purely Political’

Not all the council members said they would support Griset’s call. Councilman John Acosta called Griset’s announcement “purely political” and said he would continue to support the downtown site until it is clear that the problems associated with it couldn’t be solved.

Vice Mayor P. Lee Johnson said he also supports the Westdome plans because of the importance of having an arena in town. “I don’t care where it goes, I want the Westdome in Santa Ana,” he said.

City Manager Robert C. Bobb said he believed the developers had waited too long to try to drum up support for the project. He said he is not ready to give up on Westdome somewhere in Santa Ana. “My job and the city administration’s job is to make it happen,” he said.

Councilman Hart said the Washington Square letter cements his opposition to the downtown site and added that he doesn’t want Westdome to detract from the city’s redevelopment successes. “This single development has called into question a redevelopment process that’s been prudent, successful and extremely advantageous to the community,” he said.

Luxembourger said he has always been neutral on the downtown site, though he supported the financing plan.