City Report on Stadium Negotiations Reveals Little

A City Council committee remained tight-lipped Monday about its negotiations with the developer of a proposed $18.7-million minor league baseball stadium, but assured the public that steps are being taken to ease the project’s financial burden on the taxpayers.

“Work is still in progress,” Councilman Jim Friedman told the council and about a dozen people who turned out for Monday night’s meeting. “We are here to answer general questions, but nothing with regard to the deal points.”

The committee was created last month to take a hard look at a consultant’s report that showed a proposed 5,000-seat stadium would lose about $100,000 a year in its first four years of operation. The report said the ballpark would turn a modest profit of $30,000 a year beginning in its fifth year.

The committee also was charged with striking a deal with the proponents of the so-called Centerplex project that would reduce the city’s financial risk.

But what was supposed to be a simple report by the committee spiraled into a 90-minute debate of the project, with supporters saying that it would give the city a much-needed venue for families and critics arguing that it would gobble up millions of city dollars.

“Overall, if we do this we will have less money for other things,” Councilman Steve Bennett said after showing a slide presentation he put together in opposition to the project. His actions were quickly attacked by other council members.

“To me, this is the wrong venue to bring this up,” Councilman Ray Di Guilio said. “This is a violation of the task force. . . . I do have a problem with being told what’s right and wrong.”

But Bennett said his comments should not be stifled. “I think we ought to be careful about censoring what a council member says.”

The disagreement came after a report by the committee, which has met three times with developer John Hofer, who has agreed to donate a 20-acre parcel of farmland south of the Ventura Auto Center for the Class-A stadium project.

“I think we have made a lot of progress,” said Di Guilio, who serves on the committee with Friedman and Councilman Gary Tuttle. “We are much further along the road than that preliminary report, but we do not have all the pieces together.”

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The committee has also researched financing packages negotiated for other ballparks in Southern California, such as the stadiums in Adelanto, Lancaster and Rancho Cucamonga.

“We have studied them all,” Di Guilio said before the meeting.

Now, the group is working to develop a draft contract, or memorandum of understanding, with the developer to be brought back for council consideration in September.

“We are not going to bring a signed, sealed and delivered package to the council,” Di Guilio said. “We will have a first draft . . . and then it will become very public. We believe at that point in time the thing can get the public review that it needs.”

The committee members have said little about the details of their negotiations with Hofer, saying they do not want to compromise the negotiations.

“The last thing we would want to do is play this out or negotiate this in the press,” Friedman said before the meeting.

Meanwhile, the project’s environmental review process has been put on hold until the political questions can be resolved, city officials said.

Two months ago, the city’s environmental impact review committee called for an expanded study of the project after an initial review identified 14 potential problem areas, including traffic, air quality and noise.

“Half of that has been done, the other half is on hold at the request of the Hofers to see what the council does,” said Everett Millais, the city’s director of community services.”There is a desire to see where it is going politically first.”