City Approval of Mall Expansion Plan Criticized

A City Council vote to approve the Buenaventura Mall expansion undermines efforts to put its hotly debated financing package before the city’s voters, opponents of the finance plan said Tuesday.

The council voted unanimously to approve the $50-million expansion shortly before midnight Monday, ending a marathon six-hour meeting. The project must come back for final approval Jan. 22.

Opponents said the council’s vote ignores the wishes of 14,000 residents who requested a March ballot initiative seeking to nix the tax-sharing plan at the heart of the expansion.

Initiative backers now say they will have to go to court to give voters an opportunity to speak on the issue.

“At this point, our last resort will be to obtain a temporary restraining order to stop any further action by the council,” said Jere Robings, co-chairman of a committee backing the initiative.

But council members Tuesday defended their decision and accused initiative backers of trying to stall the project.

“We are going forward,” Mayor Jack Tingstrom said. “All they want to do is delay this. Delay, delay, delay. We are not going to delay this. We are going forward.”

Initiative backers said they expected the council to hold off on its decision until after the March election.

“We thought that the council would observe the intent of the petition drive and the election and not do anything until after the people had had their voice heard,” Robings said. “They are certainly showing their intent to push this thing through.”

But city officials have argued that they must stick to a tight timeline in order for mall construction to begin.

“Time is money, and we are losing the potential of gaining a higher retail tax income,” Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures said Tuesday.

J.C. Penney wants to move into its newly constructed department store by Christmas 1997. For that to occur, construction would have to begin almost immediately.

“We have a timeline that we have committed to in order that they may plan their opening dates,” Measures said of J.C. Penney and the other department stores.

Officials fear that protracted court battles may yet derail the project, though City Atty. Pete Bulens said he doubted a judge would grant a restraining order against the city.

“It is highly unlikely that a judge would grant that order preventing a government from going forward and doing what a government is charged to do,” he said. “Certainly they have a right to try to get one, but I think it would be difficult.”

The initiative on the March 26 ballot, known as Measure S, seeks to prohibit the city from engaging in tax-sharing deals with developers to pay for projects such as the mall expansion.

The initiative was launched in opposition to a deal brokered by the city and mall developers in which the developer would pay for $12.6 million in public improvements, to be reimbursed by the city’s share of increased tax revenue over 20 years.

Including interest, the payback would total $32.3 million.

Initiative supporters say the deal gives away taxpayers’ money. City officials say the plan is a long-term, risk-free investment.

“When this new council was seated this year, they said they were going to do whatever is necessary to approve this,” said Lary Reid, the other co-chairman of the anti-tax-rebate group. “I don’t see what is wrong with letting the people speak.”

If the council grants final approval to the project, its tax-sharing component would not be affected by the initiative, Bulens said.

During Monday’s meeting, residents opposed to the tax-sharing deal urged council members to reject the project, while others voiced support for the plan.

Mall developers want to add a second level of shops and two new department stores to the 30-year-old shopping center--an investment that Chamber of Commerce President John Walters said was necessary to protect the mall from deteriorating into a dinosaur.

“Without the renovations,” he said, “you can expect decay in the area and blight.”

But Ventura resident and accountant Bill Baker told council members that the tax-sharing deal under consideration gives away millions of dollars to salvage the mall’s sales-tax base, which he estimated at $300,000 instead of the city’s $1-million estimate.

“The city is going to spend $32 million,” he said of the public improvement payback. “It is a big price to pay.”

Planning Commissioner Ted Temple had the last say during the public hearing Monday, encouraging council members to approve the project and blasting critics of the tax-sharing deal.

“How can you give away something you don’t have?” Temple asked. “That I can’t fathom. But I can see how you can lose something you do have.”