Stadium’s Inclusion in Road Study Criticized

Environmentalists are accusing city officials of deceiving the public by slipping studies of the proposed Centerplex baseball stadium and sports complex into an environmental impact report on a city road project.

Critics say the city tried to dodge public scrutiny by studying the sports center as part of a review of the extension of Olivas Park Drive, the most ambitious road improvement project the city has ever launched.

“I am a great believer of full disclosure, and I think the way this has been handled is a very egregious example of bad public policy,” said Carla Bard, a former chairwoman of the State Water Resources Board who lives in Ojai. “This is a question of the city spending public tax money to benefit private developers.”

But Ventura officials adamantly deny the accusations, saying that a report on the $18-million Olivas Park Drive project required studying all future land uses in the area, including the Centerplex proposal and other future development options.

“We have to talk about alternate land use proposals,” Community Services Director Everett Millais said. “It is not a Centerplex EIR.”

But concerns about the report do not stop with Centerplex.

The city of Oxnard and the Ventura County Flood Control Department have questioned plans to place a mile-long levee along the north bank of the Santa Clara River.

City officials say the rock barrier is needed to protect the new road and development in the area from flooding.

But county Deputy Director of Public Works Alex Sheydayi said the levee’s placement would “significantly impact and cause flood problems in the upper north bank and south bank areas” of the river.

In a detailed 28-page letter, Oxnard Special Projects Director Richard J. Maggio said the levee would cause flooding on the Oxnard side of the river, which runs along Ventura Road and the River Ridge Golf Course. He calls the report “legally and technically flawed.”

Environmentalists have also targeted the report for failing to recognize the river as home to a rapidly diminishing population of steelhead trout.

“The EIR reads like they had never even heard of this fish,” said Ron Bottorff, chairman of Friends of the Santa Clara River.

Jim Edmonson, director of a fish preservation group called California Trout, criticized biologists for conducting their research during the summer when the migratory fish are not present.

“This is like going on the Ventura Freeway at 3 a.m. to determine if there is a traffic jam,” he said. “Steelhead are not present during that period.”

More than a dozen letters criticizing the report have been filed at City Hall since the report was made available in January. The critics generally agree on one point: The report should be revised and recirculated to the public.

“Like a rotting fish, this thing stinks,” said Neil Moyer, president of the Environmental Coalition of Ventura County.

The flurry of protest does not surprise Millais, who expected the project would be controversial.

“There will probably have to be major revisions,” he said. “It is out for public review; we will assemble the comments we have. The EIR needs to be done right, and that is going to be our focus.”

The Olivas Park Drive extension is considered a vital project to alleviate traffic congestion on Victoria Avenue and to provide better access to the Ventura Auto Mall, the city’s leading source of sales tax revenue.

Although the extension would only add about a mile of new roadway, it could provide a new route for more than 30,000 cars daily.

For the last decade, city officials have worked with the California Department of Transportation on plans to extend the road and revamp a section of the Ventura Freeway at Johnson Drive.

But state funding for that project dried up after the Northridge earthquake, pushing Johnson Drive improvements back to at least 1999.

With pressure mounting from auto dealers to jump-start traffic flow in their direction, the city embarked on a massive plan to connect Olivas Park and Johnson drives.

Among the necessary improvements, the $18-million project would require the construction of a levee along the north side of the Santa Clara River, and upgrades to the river’s southern bank.

On Monday, the City Council will consider spending about $12 million in the city’s traffic funds for the project during a hearing on the city’s capital improvement budget.

Last May, the council agreed to spend nearly $200,000 for an environmental impact report to analyze the project’s potential impacts on water, wildlife, air quality and traffic.

That document, titled “Olivas Park Drive Extension Project,” was released in January. A public review period was opened until early March.

At the suggestion of a friend, environmentalist Carla Bard picked up a copy of the report a week before the review period was set to end. Startled by its findings, she filed a request to extend the period, which now ends April 2.

Bard said more people would have looked at the report if it had indicated in the title that the levee and Centerplex were part of the study.

“It should have said Olivas Park Drive Extension/Centerplex,” said Bard, who works in public affairs for Patagonia Inc.

But city engineer Rick Raives said the city is not required to list every aspect of environmental review on the cover of a report.

“It doesn’t matter if the levee was in the title or not,” he said. “The key is what’s in the project description.”

Indeed, the 19-page description of the road project identifies the levee and Centerplex components and features them prominently in drawings and graphics.

But Bard and other environmentalists say the report’s modest title was misleading.

“If you had just looked at the list of EIR titles, that title would not have given any indication” of its contents, Moyer of the Environmental Coalition said. “The public could not possibly have known that they should have been participating and why.”

Some city leaders agree. Councilman Gary Tuttle said the report should be revised and redistributed to the community. And he also wants the issue to come before the City Council for a full hearing.

“It hasn’t been a good process,” Tuttle said.

The inclusion of Centerplex in the report was of particular concern, he said.

“I am not coming out for or against this,” Tuttle said. “I’d probably buy tickets. But I want this project to come forward with all the facts and figures out on the table for full scrutiny. But that is just not happening.”

Last summer, owners of the Ventura Auto Mall proposed building a minor league baseball stadium and adjacent sports complex on 75 acres of farmland behind the center.

The City Council embraced the concept but told developers to come back with a financing plan that would not place the city at risk.

Centerplex proponents are revising that plan and expect to come back to the council late next month.

“It is a variety of projects,” said Paul Hofer, one of the landowners. “The baseball stadium is the core of the thing.”

But the project would also include a swimming pool, a golf driving range and roads that could accommodate vintage car racing, he said. “Hopefully at some point we would get some retail to go along with it.”

Among its findings, the report says a baseball stadium and swim complex would “have a significantly higher water demand than the typical low-scale commercial and light industrial uses found in the area.”

The report also says Centerplex has the potential to generate unusually high volumes of solid waste that could affect the city’s ability to meet state waste mandates.

Because the Centerplex concept is high-profile, environmentalists say the public should have been notified that the city was conducting a review of the project.

And although the report was not done with the intention of benefiting Centerplex proponents, Millais said, its findings could be used by the developer in bringing the project forward.

“There is some ability by future developers or users in the area to piggyback on this EIR,” he said.

Hofer said his family did not request that Centerplex studies be included in the report. “The EIR on those things has to be dictated by the city,” he said.

The road project is not expected to be completed until 1998, and that is providing that the city can certify the environmental report in a timely fashion and secure enough funding to proceed.

City officials must also negotiate with the railroad company to cancel or reroute rail service for a week while construction near the Johnson Drive exit is done.

But Centerplex proponents are eager to throw out the first baseball by summer 1997, which means they may have to conduct their own environmental studies instead of using the city’s report, officials said.

“Anything that is done with Centerplex,” Raives said, “is going to have to have separate review in its own.”