Mall Suit Hearing Delayed Till June

A lawsuit demanding a recount of signatures from those supporting an anti-mall referendum will not be heard until June, a Superior Court judge ruled Wednesday.

Opponents of the proposed expansion of the Buenaventura Mall filed suit earlier this week, asking the court to force Ventura officials to count pro-referendum signatures that were thrown out because the petitioners who gathered them were not registered city voters.

Judge William L. Peck gave both sides until June 3 to develop their cases.

Peck also set a May 15 hearing for a series of arguments City Atty. Pete Bulens plans to file on what he says are defects in the suit filed by referendum supporters.

Among the flaws, the committee that filed the suit--Citizens Against the Sales Tax Giveaway--failed to identify its sponsor in the case, Bulens said.

The committee has been bankrolled by The Esplanade mall in Oxnard, which stands to lose its two department stores if the Ventura mall is expanded.

“The sponsor is The Esplanade and they are not named,” Bulens said, adding that the lawsuit should have been filed by a registered city voter, not a committee.

“We think that there is a reasonable argument that the Citizens Against the Sales Tax Giveaway is not a proper party in this complaint,” Bulens said.

But Ron Turovsky, the attorney representing the group, said the city’s arguments were “silly procedural issues” with no legal footing. “It is just without basis,” he said.

Citizens Against the Sales Tax Giveaway is opposed to a tax-sharing deal brokered by the city for the $50-million expansion of the mall.

The group first put a measure on the March ballot aimed at killing the tax deal, but failed to win enough votes. They are now pursuing a referendum drive to overturn the City Council’s approval of the project.

But the number of signatures needed to put that referendum before the voters fell short after county elections officials threw out all signatures collected by petitioners who were not registered to vote in Ventura.