Board Member Questions OCTA Deal

A transit agency board member who refused to participate in a recent closed-session vote to buy 31 acres in Santa Ana for a bus depot questioned Monday the legality of the decision to go forward with the purchase.

At Monday’s transit board meeting, Supervisor Todd Spitzer asked for a clarification of the legal precedent used by the Orange County Transportation Authority to rush the $23-million real estate deal, saying he believed that at the very least the vote violated the spirit of California’s public meetings act.

“This smacks of the way business was done prior to the bankruptcy,” Spitzer said after the meeting. “The reason OCTA was so motivated to avoid all the Brown Act protections was because they knew if Santa Ana caught wind of the potential transaction they would have tried to unwind the deal.”

The land deal has caused a heated battle between Santa Ana city officials and the transit agency. The land in question--near MacArthur and Harbor boulevards--is part of a federally designated Empowerment Zone and was considered a prime spot for industrial development by Santa Ana city officials, who hoped to create at least 1,200 jobs at the site.

Santa Ana officials were outraged when they learned of the Oct. 14 decision, moving last week to block the sale in court with a temporary restraining order. They were thwarted when OCTA inked the deal with the owner of the concrete company currently on the site just hours before the court hearing.

“We’re going to lose millions of dollars for the city that could have been earned under the federal designation. This depot is not going to stimulate the economy for the Empowerment Zone,” said Santa Ana Mayor Miguel A. Pulido Jr. Pulido serves on the transit board but was not present at the vote on the bus depot location because his wife was in the hospital giving birth to their second son.

The purchase of the land was never discussed at a public meeting and occurred without the item appearing on any of the transit board’s agendas.

The night before the vote, Pulido said, he spoke to OCTA’s chief executive officer Lisa Mills, but she refused to tell him the details of what would be discussed at the meeting.

Santa Ana officials are considering citing a violation of the Brown Act in a planned legal challenge of the sale. Such a violation could void the sale and open board members who participated in the decision to criminal liability.

Kennard R. Smart Jr., the agency’s outside counsel, told the board its action was legal but agreed to provide a written legal analysis of the provision that allowed it.

“We believe that we are on firm legal ground here,” agency spokesman Dave Simpson said. “The rest of the board that voted that day thought differently from Mr. Spitzer.”

Transit officials say the location is ideal for a fourth depot and will provide 500 jobs, some paying as much as $21 an hour.