Mall Initiative Spokesman Gives City Little Help on Identity of Author : Development: Officials want to tell voters who wrote the measure that some say may harm projects citywide.

The spokesman for an initiative that could thwart the Buenaventura Mall expansion remained tight-lipped Friday about who wrote the measure, despite requests by city officials to tell the public who is behind it.

City officials have drafted a letter asking initiative proponent Lary Reid to reveal who wrote, organized and is financing the initiative, which has qualified for the March ballot.

The City Council is expected to authorize the letter Monday amid concern that the sweeping initiative would harm development proposals throughout the city.

“I think we have an obligation to ask the question and make an official request for information,” City Manager Donna Landeros said Friday. “We don’t have any legal recourse beyond asking the question.”

But Reid would say little Friday about where the measure originated and who wrote it.

“It was written by a committee of seven people, of which there were two lawyers,” said Reid, treasurer and co-chairman of Citizens Against the Sales Tax Giveaway, the group that qualified the measure for the ballot.

A Ventura businessman who restores furniture, Reid said he does not know who the lawyers are but said they are based in Ventura County.

“Those lawyers wish to remain anonymous,” he said. “These are people who do business with the city who wish to not be identified.”

City Atty. Peter Bulens said city officials cannot legally force any information out of Reid, who is their sole contact on the measure. And despite their request for information, they don’t expect Reid to volunteer it.

“I thoroughly expect he will tell us where to put our request,” Bulens said.

Reid filed the neatly typed initiative with the city clerk’s office on Sept. 22. The eight-page document bears no letterhead or typed identification, just Reid’s name and address hand-written at the bottom.

But Reid said Friday he is only a supporter of the measure and pointed to the committee of seven as its originators.

“I am not really the direct proponent,” he said. “I signed the initiative. They needed somebody in the city of Ventura who was a registered voter to sign it.”

In terms of who is financing the measure, Reid said his group has been upfront about its backers, which include the owners of a rival mall in Oxnard.

“We have received money from the owners of The Esplanade,” he said. “It’s right out in front.”

Reid said a person on the seven-member committee contacted The Esplanade owners for funding. He would not say who made the contact. “I can’t tell the name.”

City officials have asked Reid to reveal more information.

“It is of vital interest to the community that the sponsors of the Reid Initiative identify who they are, their political committee make-up, their funding sources, and their legal and communication support services,” Assistant City Manager Steve Chase wrote in his report to the City Council.

Chase continued that “Reid has not been responsive in this particular regard, necessitating this formal action on behalf of our community.”

“They keep accusing us of being so secretive,” Reid said Friday in response to Chase’s report. “Who wrote it? I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

Reid accused city officials of being less than forthright with Ventura residents on the details of the tax-sharing proposal that is the crux of the ballot initiative and of the plans to expand the 30-year-old shopping center.

Under a deal being brokered by city staff members and mall owners, the developers would pay $12.5 million in street improvements before construction on the mall begins. Developers want to add a second level to the mall, plus two new anchor stores and a parking structure.

Over the next 20 years, the city would reimburse the developers using extra sales-tax revenue generated beyond the $1 million now gleaned annually from mall sales.

Initiative backers call the deal a tax giveaway. City officials and some local business owners call it a wise investment that places all the risk on the developer and none on the city.

The initiative seeks to stop the deal and to prohibit any future tax rebates to developers.

City officials say the measure would strip the city of its fiscal powers, placing Ventura at a serious disadvantage in comparison with other cities in Ventura County that could engage in such tax-sharing plans.

The initiative qualified for the March ballot this week with more than 14,000 signatures. The City Council is expected to call for a special election Monday night that would coincide with the county’s March 26 election.

The council could adopt the measure outright, but city officials have recommended placing it on the ballot for consideration by the city’s voters. The special election will cost the city about $30,000.

Meanwhile, plans for the proposed mall expansion are moving ahead, Landeros said Friday. The $50-million expansion plan is expected to come before the Planning Commission on Dec. 12.

“We are absolutely moving ahead,” Landeros said. “We are committed to this project at the staff level. . . . If we sit here and do nothing that mall will collapse.”