COSTA MESA : Council OKs Plan SOS Has Rejected

The City Council on Tuesday finally approved a plan to help one of the county’s largest private charities move to new quarters but won no praise from the embattled charity’s directors.

The council voted 3 to 2, with council members Orville Amburgey and Mary Hornbuckle dissenting, to provide financial assistance to the charity Share Our Selves but at considerably less cost to the city than had previously been proposed.

Amburgey argued that SOS had not shown good faith with the city and should not be supported. Hornbuckle called the plan a “disservice” and said it did not go far enough to aid the charity.

Twenty-four hours before the council’s action, however, directors of SOS also took a vote and unanimously rejected the plan as unacceptable.

Jean Forbath, SOS founder and executive director, said the plan places too much of a financial burden on the charity and does not provide long-term stability.

SOS directors are negotiating to purchase their own building and had stated that they would consider any city offer as a fallback option. But their rejection of the plan now leaves the charity in a vulnerable position should purchase negotiations falter.

Forbath said her group would like to continue to work with the city to devise a plan that both parties can accept.

Under the plan approved by the council, SOS would move from its current home at the Rea Community Center--from which it is being evicted because of complaints from residents in the surrounding neighborhood--to a site at 1695 W. MacArthur Blvd.

The commercial building, east of the Santa Ana River just inside the city limit, is home to the Community Development Council, a separate anti-poverty agency.

The plan includes two options, one for a long term and one for temporary relocation of SOS, as it continues searching for a building to purchase as a permanent home.

Under a three-year plan, SOS would sublease 4,200 square feet of space at a rent of $3,780 a month. SOS would initially pay $610 of the rent, with the city picking up the $3,170 balance. The charity would pay 25% of the rent during the next 12 months of the lease term and 50% during the last year of the arrangement.

The arrangement would require SOS to deposit first and last month’s rent, but the city agreed to provide a letter of credit to CDC to ensure that financial terms are met.

Under the short-term option, SOS could enter into a six-month lease with CDC but would be required to pay substantially more rent--about 25% above market rate--for the same amount of space. The city would foot only 25% of the monthly bill.

While city officials said the conditions are to ensure that SOS fulfills the financial terms of the proposal, they also conceded the proposal provides some stability for the troubled CDC.

That agency has been beset with financial problems for many years. Most recently, a committee appointed by the County Board of Supervisors looked into charges that CDC directors had mismanaged the agency’s $5-million budget. The committee ultimately decided that the allegations were unfounded.

One of CDC’s long-term problems has been what to do with about 10,000 square feet of vacant office space for which it has been paying rent.

If SOS moved in and shared in the payments, CDC would be able to spend more of its money on “programmatic activities rather than paying rent,” conceded CDC executive director Clarence W. (Buddy) Ray.

But Ray insisted that the agency’s offer to lease space to SOS was conceived as a friendly gesture to aid a sister charity and was not intended to solve its own financial problems.

“We have been concerned about being perceived as aligned with the city or SOS,” Ray said. “Our position has always been that we want to help rather than have SOS’s services lost to the county. But the balancing side has to be that the plan is workable for CDC operationally and financially.”

The CDC board of directors is scheduled to consider the city’s proposal today. But Ray said the agency would probably be willing to modify some conditions of the plan to help reach an agreement with SOS.