ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Grand Jury Sniffs Out a Rat

The saga of Laguna Niguel’s misplaced parkland goes on. Now the Orange County Grand Jury has issued a sharply critical report on the transfer of 96 acres of parkland to a development firm, which set about building 200 homes on it. To avoid transfers such as this in the future, the grand jury proposes sound ways to clarify procedures. Some have already been put into practice; the rest should be adopted as soon as possible.

The Laguna Niguel story began last summer, when it was disclosed that the district attorney’s office was investigating a 1988 transaction in which the 96 acres were “quitclaimed” to Taylor Woodrow Homes California Ltd. by the Laguna Niguel Community Services District, which oversaw park and recreation issues in the area before Laguna Niguel incorporated.

Dist. Atty. Michael A. Capizzi declared last fall that he found insufficient evidence of criminal wrongdoing in the land transfer. But the grand jury, after investigating civil aspects, concluded that at the very least the land transfer had been overlooked by county planners and bungled by Laguna Niguel officials.

In particular, the grand jury was concerned that information provided to the Community Services District board in the first place was “incomplete, deficient in explanation and misleading.” It also found that the subsequent signing of quitclaim documents by James F. Krembas, then a member of the Community Services District board, while board President Patricia C. Bates was out of town, was “not coincidental” to Bates’ absence--implying it had been done behind her back. That “added to the confusion,” the report said.

Taylor Woodrow maintains that the transfer was merely a ministerial act and that few involved, including the grand jury, understand land-development law. But the grand jury rightly has smelled a rat.

Still pending are civil lawsuits filed by Laguna Niguel and Taylor Woodrow against each other over use of the land. Perhaps they will shed light on what went wrong.