Bid to Block Expansion of Mall Fails

In a major victory for city leaders and developers pushing to turn the Buenaventura Mall into the biggest shopping center in Ventura County, officials announced Tuesday that an effort to block the mall’s expansion by a special referendum has failed.

The proposed referendum aimed at halting the mall expansion will not be placed on the November ballot because a recount of petitions supporting the measure fell short by nearly 400 signatures, city officials said.

While the mall expansion still faces three court challenges from the city of Oxnard, which is fighting to keep its own Esplanade mall viable in the west county’s competitive retail market, Ventura leaders hailed the referendum’s defeat.

“The referendum was simply another delay tactic that is no longer an issue,” Ventura Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures said. “We can go forward.”

The referendum was the latest attempt from a group bankrolled by owners of The Esplanade mall to scuttle the Buenaventura expansion. But after a 10-month fight and two unsuccessful ballot measures, a leader of the group said Tuesday they are giving up the fight.

“I doubt if there will be any further movement on our part,” said Jere Robings, co-chairman of Citizens Against the Sales Tax Giveaway. “As far as we are concerned, we will take no action.”

The recount marked the second time that county election officials have reviewed the 8,715 signatures turned in by the group in February. Elections officials invalidated the petition drive in April because too many of the people collecting the signatures were not registered Ventura voters.

But referendum backers then sued the city over the issue, and last month Superior Court Judge William L. Peck ruled that the signatures would have to be recounted. Peck said the rights of the voters should not be impeded by a signature gatherer’s lack of qualification.

Adhering to his ruling, the Ventura city clerk then sent the 8,715 signatures back to county elections officials for a second count.

But Deputy City Clerk Mabi Covarrubias Plisky said Tuesday the recount showed that only 5,609 signatures were valid and 3,106 signatures were not valid. Referendum backers needed 5,999 valid signatures to qualify the referendum for the Nov. 5 ballot.

“Bottom line, they are 390 short,” Plisky said.

More than one-third of the invalid signatures were from unregistered voters, Plisky said. An additional 434 were signatures of residents who live outside Ventura.

City leaders expressed surprise Tuesday that the signature drive had fallen short. When Peck ruled against the city last month, they assumed that the measure would qualify.

“It is a surprise,” Mayor Jack Tingstrom said. “I feel good that it is 390 [signatures] and not 10.”

If the referendum had qualified for the November ballot, it would have been the second time this year that Ventura voters would have been asked to approve the expansion.

In the early stages of its fight with Ventura, Citizens Against the Sales Tax Giveaway launched a petition drive that succeeded in placing an initiative on the March ballot that was also aimed at killing the expansion.

In January, however, the Ventura City Council took some steam out of that effort by voting to approve the mall expansion--a move that would have still made it possible to go ahead with the long-awaited project despite the outcome of the initiative.

And two months later, Ventura’s voters went one step further in support of the mall. Despite a high-priced campaign financed by The Esplanade’s owners in San Francisco, the measure was defeated by 65% of Ventura’s voters.

Under the proposed expansion, the Buenaventura Mall would add two department stores and a second level of shops to the 31-year-old shopping center.

Once expanded, the 1.3-million-square-foot mall would surpass The Oaks in Thousand Oaks in size.

Sears and Robinsons-May have agreed to leave The Esplanade for the improved Ventura mall--a move that Oxnard officials and Esplanade owners say will hurt the city’s only shopping mall, diminish Oxnard’s sales-tax base and create blight in the area.

With Tuesday’s defeat of the second attempt to kill the project at the polls, Ventura officials now say they are ready to move forward and expressed the belief that the pending court cases should not be viewed as an obstacle in moving ahead.

“The city and the retailers are very anxious and will be working with the developer to see the project go forward,” said Steve Chase, the city’s coordinator for the mall expansion.

The three pending lawsuits filed by the city of Oxnard challenge the financial arrangements and the project’s environmental review process. But city officials said those do not directly inhibit the developer from moving forward.

“There is no injunction preventing anything from going forward at this time,” City Atty. Pete Bulens said.

Mall developer David A. Jones said the defeat of the referendum will allow his company, MCA Buenaventura Associates, to complete designs and schedules for the project. But whether the project breaks ground before the end of the year remains to be seen.

“We are certainly hopeful that the referendum process is behind us,” Jones said. “We are cautiously optimistic.”