Mall Foes File Voter Petitions and Lawsuit

Plans to upgrade the Buenaventura Mall were assaulted on two fronts Wednesday as opponents turned in petitions to force a citywide vote on the project while Oxnard officials filed a lawsuit aimed at blocking the $50-million expansion.

The lawsuit and voter referendum are the latest attacks on the hotly contested expansion. Ventura officials say that litigation could delay the project, and that a referendum, if it qualifies for a special election, could kill it outright.

Referendum supporters turned in 8,568 signatures Wednesday opposing the expansion. If 6,026 of those belong to registered voters, the city will be forced to hold a special election in July.

“It’s the only option we have,” said taxpayer advocate Jere Robings, who lugged a box of signed petitions to City Hall on Wednesday. “It’s the only way the taxpayers have to voice their opinion.”

Supporters say the referendum is needed to give Ventura residents a chance to consider a much-debated financing arrangement at the heart of the mall expansion approved by the City Council last month.

Under the agreement, the developer will pay $12.6 million in public improvements to be reimbursed by the city over the next 20 years. With interest, the payback is expected to total $32.3 million.

City leaders say the referendum, which is being financed by the owners of The Esplanade mall in Oxnard, would hurt Ventura by derailing a project aimed at boosting sales tax revenue.

Mayor Jack Tingstrom pledged to fight the referendum and any other obstacles to the long-awaited mall expansion.

“I think that it is an absolute sham what they are doing and we are going to beat them,” Tingstrom said. “We are not going to take it lying down.”

If the referendum qualifies, it would cost the city at least $85,000 and mark the first time in at least a quarter century that a council decision has been challenged in a special election.

The mall expansion also faces an attack from the city of Oxnard, which filed a lawsuit in Ventura County Superior Court on Wednesday that seeks to halt the project.

Opponents of the mall renovation had until 5 p.m. Wednesday to contest the Ventura City Council’s Jan. 29 approval of the project.

Filed 15 minutes before that deadline, the suit contends that the environmental impact report Ventura commissioned on the project is “wholly inadequate, defective and therefore void” under state environmental regulations.

The Esplanade mall stands to lose its only anchor stores--Sears and Robinsons-May--if the Ventura project goes through.

Those stores have agreed to relocate to the improved Buenaventura Mall, which would result in a loss of more than $500,000 in annual sales tax revenues to Oxnard. Officials in that city also fear that if the stores leave it could mean a slow death for The Esplanade.

“There were no overtures from the city of San Buenaventura to open up any discussions about the possible loss of sales tax revenues to our city,” said Oxnard City Councilman Andres Herrera. “Their environmental impact report was technically deficient. We have to protect our interests, obviously.”

Specifically, the suit contends that environmental documents failed to adequately address changes in the project’s design and downplayed its effect on traffic and air quality.

The suit also assails the plan for failing to analyze the project’s economic impact on Oxnard.

In its suit, Oxnard is seeking to block the project until Ventura completes a new environmental impact report that deals with those concerns. The suit also asks Ventura to pay attorneys’ fees and other costs associated with the case.

Oxnard officials estimate that litigation expenses could top $150,000, but Herrera would not say how much the city is willing to spend.

“We are trying to do whatever it takes to get things done correctly,” he said.

Ventura officials Wednesday dismissed the claims in Oxnard’s suit and said they believe the court will find their environmental analysis beyond reproach.

“We have indicated in the past that we don’t think that there are any defects in the [environmental impact report],” Ventura City Attorney Pete Bulens said. “We continue to indicate that.”

Ventura leaders have said that the planned project is actually smaller in scale than the one reviewed in environmental documents. They also have said that the potential loss of two stores in Oxnard is an economic issue that Ventura need not address in an environmental document.

“At this point we will go forward and defend this lawsuit,” Bulens said. “This [suit] is something we expected.”

Oxnard leaders have appealed to Ventura officials to work together on plans to build a regional mall, allowing both cities to split sales tax revenues.

But Ventura officials call that concept self-serving, saying Oxnard did not make similar proposals when it built large shopping centers in recent years.

Steve Kinney, the president of the Greater Oxnard Economic Development Corp., lamented that the neighboring cities have been unable to reach a compromise.

“It seems to be consistent with past historical patterns of the two cities not working well together on regional issues,” Kinney said Wednesday.

“In this case, I think it is truly unfortunate because if the two cities go against each other, it is really a zero-sum game. There is really no net advantage to any city winning at the expense of the other.”

Kinney said that his city will have trouble luring new anchor stores to The Esplanade if Sears and Robinsons-May skip town.

“I think that there aren’t enough other major department stores in play in Southern California that would be willing to take the risk of locating in The Esplanade in the face of a newly revitalized and expanded Buenaventura Mall,” Kinney said.

The petitions filed Wednesday for the referendum are expected to be counted within 30 days. If there are enough signatures, the city will have to spend $85,000 to hold a special election, money city officials say would be better spent elsewhere.

But referendum supporters say city leaders have only themselves to blame. If council members had waited until the outcome of a March ballot initiative that also targets the mall expansion, the referendum could have been avoided, Robings said.

“That was their choice,” he said. “We told them the night they [approved the project] that it would cost the city.”