Brea Loses Appeal to Seize Inventor’s Property

Officials have suffered another blow in their bid to seize an inventor’s downtown warehouse for a redevelopment project.

An appellate court recently held that city officials acted illegally when they took property owned by Michael Kunec, a semiretired 77-year-old inventor who is legally blind.

The same court chastised officials for failing to explain why they allowed a former city councilman with a conflict of interest to vote on the property seizure.

The court’s decision is a setback for city officials who were hoping to take Kunec’s property and deed it over to the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, whose downtown property was acquired for the redevelopment project.

Since 1985, the city has been using its powers of eminent domain to take title to downtown properties to overhaul the area.

The redevelopment project has displaced many longtime business owners, including Kunec, who has been credited with inventing a blood pump used in heart surgery, developing devices for preventing infant crib deaths, and creating a computer keyboard for blind children.

Kunec’s legal battle with the city is probably the most contentious in the downtown project.

In November 1991, the City Council, acting as a redevelopment agency, voted 4 to 0 to acquire Kunec’s property at 109 N. Brea Blvd. Before the vote, a city attorney announced that two councilmen--Carrey Nelson and Ronald Isles--were precluded from voting because they owned property near the redevelopment area.

Needing four affirmative votes to condemn Kunec’s property, city officials invoked a seldom-used device, a rule of necessity, to get a fourth vote. They flipped a coin allowing one of the conflicted councilmen, Nelson, to vote.

After securing Nelson’s vote, city officials evicted Kunec from his warehouse and offered him $210,000 for the property. Kunec, who is unable to drive, countered that he needed about $450,000 to find a location in an area with public transportation.

Kunec sued, and Superior Court Judge Leonard Goldstein ruled in 1994 that the city acted illegally when it seized the inventor’s warehouse. The 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana recently upheld the judge’s ruling.

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Writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, Justice Thomas Crosby said the city had good reason to invoke the rule of necessity “to avoid government by paralysis, but it did not properly invoke it.”

City officials should have made a “full public disclosure on the record,” detailing the conflicts on interest of the two former councilmen, the judge said.

“Public disclosure is a critical weapon in the fight against corruption,” Crosby said. “When there is real impropriety, or merely the appearance of impropriety, the public has a right to know the particulars.”

Quoting from an earlier opinion, Crosby said, “The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instrument they have created.”

Michael Leifer, an attorney for Kunec, said Monday that his client will now try to regain his property from the city.

City Manager Frank Benest said the city’s attorneys were reviewing the panel’s decision. “We don’t agree with the ruling and we believe we acted appropriately,” Benest said.