CYPRESS : Citizen’s Legal Point Stalls Warehouse Vote

Kathy Simcox is no lawyer. But the Cypress homemaker knew enough about municipal law to block the City Council from voting on a proposed warehouse to be located in her neighborhood.

The council, with some of its members visibly angry, was forced Monday to delay a hearing on the proposal until Sept. 25 after Simcox pointed out a technicality that prohibited it from voting on the matter just then.

It may have been a small victory but it was one that delighted Simcox and other foes of the proposed warehouse, which they believe will be an eyesore that will add traffic and noise to their neighborhood. Residents also had fought unsuccessfully to keep out two other warehouses in the city in the past year, an issue that has prompted a recall election Nov. 7 against three council members.

In the latest proposal, the council had hoped to complete a hearing begun Aug. 14 on a proposed warehouse at 11261 Warland Drive. Mayor Cecilia L. Age said the council on Aug. 14 had voted to close public comments on the matter, but the council intended to continue discussing the issue Monday.

But Simcox marched to the council podium to raise a legal point: She said the council had actually voted to close the entire public hearing Aug. 14, not just public comments.

After checking the minutes of the Aug. 14 meeting, City Atty. John E. Cavanaugh agreed. Cavanaugh said that the council was required to again advertise the public hearing, again open public comments and hold the hearing on another date. The council voted as Cavanaugh suggested.

“I knew they had made a mistake,” Simcox said in an interview. “I’m just an ordinary person but I’ve been studying the rules about public hearings.”

Simcox, 44, a former department store employee, has opposed warehouse construction in the Valley View Street area ever since the City Council approved a carpet-distribution warehouse there last September.

The Warland Drive warehouse would be a 181,924-square-foot, combined office-distribution building to be built by the Cypress Land Co. City officials have said the project is desirable because it would cause less traffic than the area’s business parks zoning would otherwise allow.

But Simcox and other warehouse opponents have contended that the city should require a new environmental impact report on the entire area before building any warehouses there.