COSTA MESA : Board Reviews New Lease for Swap Meet

A draft of the lease agreement for the Orange County Marketplace swap meet was reviewed Tuesday to begin the process of developing the lease and accepting bids for the swap meet operator.

The Orange County Fair Board decided to rewrite the document, called a request for qualifications, after merchants and the current leaseholder, Tel-Phil Enterprises, opposed several changes in a version of the document released earlier this year. The current lease, which Tel-Phil has held for 21 years, expires in April.

In the previous document, the state gave new guidelines for running the swap meet. The state withdrew the document one day after Tel-Phil filed a lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court last month seeking to block it.

The document would have given the state “the ability to hire and fire the operator’s employees, and there is a state law that says you can’t do that,” said attorney Thomas R. Malcolm, who represents Tel-Phil.

The lawsuit also seeks $2.5 million for two food facilities and two restroom buildings that Tel-Phil installed at the marketplace. Despite the state’s withdrawal of the document, Tel-Phil will not drop the lawsuit until the compensation issue is settled, Malcolm said.

The meeting Tuesday was scheduled to review a first draft of a new outline that will eventually lead to a new request for proposals to operate the swap meet, said fairgrounds spokeswoman Jill Lloyd.

“I’m sure there will be modifications to it, after revisions are made and then more public input, as we go along,” she said.

The draft does not specifically address the issues opposed by the merchants, but it outlines the state’s authority in issuing a lease, the swap meet’s 1990 attendance figures, receipt figures from 1987 to 1990, and operator requirements. It also contains a tentative schedule for granting the new lease by Jan. 23.

The board has also set a public meeting for Oct. 22 to seek public and industry comment on the lease process. A final review of the documents will take place Nov. 12, and the final acceptance of the document is scheduled for a board meeting Nov. 21.

Originally, the fair board had expected to award a new lease by the end of this year.

Merchants had objected to the state taking one-third of the swap meet’s gross profits, charging the public for parking and reducing the number of parking spaces. The proposal would also have cut the number of merchants’ spaces, forcing some of them out of business, they said.

“If those issues are not addressed (in a new proposal), then we will be very strongly against those things,” said Tom Askew, who has sold automotive supplies at the swap meet for the past 12 years. “All we are trying to do is survive with our businesses.”

Askew and other merchants delivered more than 40,000 signatures from swap meet customers, who are opposed to the old document, to Gov. Pete Wilson and sought help from the governor’s office.