Oxnard Takes Ventura Mall Fight to Appeals Court

In yet another effort to scuttle the $100-million make-over of the Buenaventura Mall, lawyers for the city of Oxnard told appellate court justices Wednesday that Ventura’s approval for the project was based on vague data and deprived citizens of their democratic rights.

The deal, initially approved by the Ventura City Council in 1995, constitutes misuse of public funds and violates state environmental law, said Stephanie Scher, a private attorney representing Oxnard in the case.

“Ventura has attempted to cast this litigation as being one city against another,” Scher argued, “but this litigation is out of concern for all the taxpayers.”

The arguments in the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Ventura came just more than a year after lower courts struck down four lawsuits brought by Oxnard seeking to halt the mall expansion.

Construction is underway to add a second floor of small shops and two new anchor stores--Sears and Robinsons-May, which will move from the nearby Esplanade mall in Oxnard.

The project will nearly double the size of Ventura’s 30-year-old midtown shopping center, making it the largest mall in the county.

Attorneys Katherine E. Stone, arguing on behalf of the city of Ventura, and Jim Colbert, representing mall developer Macerich Co., said the city did nothing improper and bent over backward to inform residents about terms of the project.

“There was no hiding the ball here,” Colbert argued before the justices. “Everything has been put on the public record.”

A ruling in the case is expected to take at least two weeks, attorneys said.

Attorneys for both cities and the mall developer already had submitted 223 pages of legal briefs to the Court of Appeal.

The three appellate court justices asked few questions after Wednesday’s oral arguments, a move that Ventura City Atty. Bob Boehm said bodes well for the city and mall.

“If the court was really concerned about the legality of the mall agreements, it probably would have asked some questions,” Boehm said. “That suggests to me that we can feel positive about today’s hearing.”

But Oxnard lawyers did not agree.

“I’m still optimistic,” Oxnard City Atty. Gary Gillig said.

The suits at issue, now consolidated into a single legal action, allege flaws in the mall project’s environmental review and the financing terms in the development agreement. Oxnard also questions whether late changes to the final lease agreements compromised the validity of the project’s contracts.

Despite the pending lawsuits, Macerich officials decided to move ahead with construction, scheduled to be completed by October 1999.

Lower court rulings in Ventura’s favor in March and April of 1997 cleared the way for the launch of the long-awaited mall project. Construction crews broke ground in October.