Mola Spares No Expense to Win Hellman Ranch Vote : Land use: Developer has outspent housing project foes 65-1. The campaign’s latest tactic is absentee ballots inserted in flyers.

Outspending their opponents more than 65 to 1, a Mola Development Corp.-sponsored committee has launched an absentee ballot campaign to win approval for a measure that would allow a 329-unit housing development to be built on the old Hellman Ranch property.

Seal Beach Citizens for Parks, Open Space and Responsible Government have attached absentee ballots to thousands of flyers mailed to voters urging them to support Measure A-91, which would result in a housing development with parks and wetlands being built on the 149-acre property.

The flyer is one of a confusing assortment of campaign brochures attacking and defending the two rival measures on the June 4 ballot. The other proposal, Measure B-91, is an advisory measure endorsed by a City Council majority that recommends a golf course and commercial development for the Hellman property.

Seal Beach Citizens for Parks, Open Space and Responsible Government reported $77,937 in contributions and said it spent $183,504 between Jan. 1 and April 20 of this year. Mola is responsible for 80% of the contributions, including the costs of circulating petitions to place A-91 on the ballot.

In contrast, Seal Beach Citizens United, which opposes A-91 and supports B-91, spent $2,734 and raised $5,099 during the same time. “And they say the big money comes at the end,” said Wendi Rothman, a member of Seal Beach Citizens United. “They’re going to bury us in money.”

Eileen Padberg, a consultant for A-91 supporters, said that having more money than Seal Beach Citizens United “in a sense makes us the bad guy.”

“Certainly the developer has a right to defend himself and certainly the citizens who have been supportive of this project have a right to have an election on this,” Padberg said.

Though Seal Beach Citizens United has been trailing financially, the group’s members have circulated flyers door to door and posted lawn signs urging voters to “Say No to Traffic.”

Rothman predicted that the intense campaigning for both measures may backfire. “I think probably what will happen is people will vote no on both because they’ll be scared of both,” Rothman said.

While voters try to decode the campaign mailer slogans, City Council debate about the ballot measures is growing increasingly fierce.

An argument erupted last week after Mayor Edna Wilson arranged a presentation on the economic and traffic impacts of Measure B-91. For months, supporters and opponents of A-91 have bandied figures back and forth, quoting from environmental documents, financial studies and legal analyses of the Mola project. But because Measure B-91 was placed on the ballot by the council majority without any environmental or financial studies, there have been no comparable figures for B-91.

“I am firmly convinced that at best B-91 is destined for dismal financial future,” said Victor Grgas, a former Seal Beach mayor and president of a professional development association, who presented his own projected financial figures. “The bottom line is that the city would have to kick in over $3.7 million per year more than the project would generate to make this plan work.”

In response, Councilman Frank Laszlo noted, “We must remember that Vic Grgas is a developer .”

Besides, said Councilwoman Gwen Forsythe, financial figures on the purely advisory Measure B-91 do not mean much because there are no definite plans and the council majority is not yet sure what it would like to see on the property.

In addition, the $30-million land purchase price used in the B-91 analysis might be substantially lower if the city rezoned the property for a golf course, Forsythe said.

Representatives of the Hellman estate, which owns the property, were not available for comment. However, in past letters to the city, Hellman attorney Robert Epsen has chided officials for substantially down-scaling development plans without consulting Mola or the Hellman estate.

“That’s about as close as you can come to a kangaroo court, Mr. Barrow,” Epsen told Assistant City Atty. Quinn Barrow in a letter dated Jan. 24, 1991.

Meanwhile, Councilwoman Marilyn Bruce Hastings, quoting from Exodus in the Bible and proclaiming herself a “believer,” last week accused Wilson and Councilman Joe Hunt of “bearing false witness” in some of their statements in campaign mailers.

Hastings said Wilson and Hunt lied to voters by allowing their names to appear on a statement saying politicians want to spend millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money on a commercial development.

The council majority recently passed a resolution saying it does not plan to spend city funds on the development outlined in B-91, but Hunt and Wilson maintain that’s the only way the plan could proceed.

Measure B-91 was placed on the ballot by the council majority to offer voters an alternative to A-91, whose supporters gathered more than 4,000 signatures to force a special election on the proposal.

Mola has fought for five years to win approval for its Hellman Ranch development. The plan laid out in A-91 was approved by the City Council in 1989 but overturned by a court last year because the city’s local housing plan was out of date at the time.

After new council members were seated, the 329-home plan was rejected by a 3-2 vote. Mola responded with an $11-million lawsuit against the city and the plan’s supporters launched their petition drive.

June 4 Special Election in Seal Beach

MEASURE A-91:

Would approve the construction of 329 single-family homes, 26 acres of parkland and 41.4 acres of wetlands on the old Hellman Ranch property.

ARGUMENTS FOR: Would preserve the city’s small-town atmosphere, open new parks and restore wetlands; would provide Seal Beach with $500,000 in new city revenue each year without tax increases; would allow the city to receive more water from the Metropolitan Water District. The development plan has been approved by state and federal environmental agencies.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST: Would increase traffic, place homes above an earthquake fault, consume water and drain city resources; parks and recreational facilities are not guaranteed; could result in more housing units on an additional portion of Hellman Ranch.

ENDORSED BY: The Mola Development Corp.-sponsored Seal Beach Citizens for Parks, Open Space and Responsible Government; Mayor Edna Wilson; Councilman Joe Hunt; Seal Beach Chamber of Commerce

OPPOSED BY: Seal Beach Citizens United, City Council members Frank Laszlo, Gwen Forsythe and Marilyn Bruce Hastings

MEASURE B-91(Advisory vote only)

If A-91 fails, B-91 would advise the City Council to use the Hellman Ranch property for a public golf course, parkland, recreational areas and wetlands. A-91 also calls for a country club, restaurant, conference center, retail shops or small-scale hotel to be built in areas that are seismically safe.

ARGUMENTS FOR: The majority of the land would be preserved as open space, with 23 acres for low-density development; would be environmentally sound and profitable; new businesses would provide needed sales tax revenue.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST: Commercial development would bring traffic and parking lots and use valuable water resources. The plan is financially unfeasible and its safety and environmental impact has not been reviewed by any state or federal agency.

ENDORSED BY: Seal Beach Citizens United

OPPOSED BY: Seal Beach Citizens for Parks, Open Space and Responsible Government