Open Meeting Law Violations Alleged

The Orange County district attorney’s office is looking into whether Costa Mesa officials violated the state open meeting law during discussions earlier this year about the Home Ranch development proposal.

The prosecutor is studying complaints by a Costa Mesa resident that the city violated the Brown Act when two members of the City Council, two members of the Planning Commission, city staff and representatives of developer C.J. Segerstrom & Sons met between March and June without notifying the public, Deputy Dist. Atty. Pete Pierce said.

The complaint was made by Paul Flanagan, president of a residents’ group that opposes the Home Ranch project, which would convert 93 acres of lima bean fields into an office park, retail space and 192 homes. The site is roughly bounded by Sunflower Avenue, the San Diego Freeway, Fairview Road and Harbor Boulevard.

Resident Sandy Genis, also a member of the group called Costa Mesa Citizens for Responsible Growth, learned of the meetings through city documents that referred to them and asked the council what the meetings were about and if she could attend.

She was told that she could not attend and that she could not be given details.

“If council members are on an official city committee, I think there should be notices, and the meetings should be open,” she said. “When they said I couldn’t go, it became an issue. If they hadn’t said that, I might have gone to a few meetings, got busy and probably not gone again.”

After she complained to the city, the meetings were discontinued.

Last week, the district attorney asked the city for a written narration of how the meetings were set up and what happened at them. The office will use the response to determine if there should be a formal investigation.

Assistant City Atty. Tom Wood said several attorneys working on the Home Ranch project determined that there was no challenge to the Brown Act.

Mayor Libby Cowan also said she is confident that there was no violation. She said the meetings were an effort to include elected representatives in the process earlier so the developers could be aware of what public benefits the council members might request in later public meetings.

Segerstrom has offered several incentives: a $2 million endowment for three high schools; $8.46 million in traffic improvements; $500,000 toward the construction of a nearby firehouse; and 30,000 square feet of land on which to build the station.

“The City Council tried to set up a process where two City Council members would begin to talk about . . . public benefits from this project. Two members of Planning Commission also were present. We were under advisement that it was OK as long we didn’t share information and were not negotiating,” Cowan said.

Terry Francke, attorney for the California First Amendment Coalition, said that if council members and Planning Commission members formed a committee, they must post notifications. Wood said the group of two planning commissioners and two council members was known as a steering committee but was really two committees, a council committee and a Planning Commission committee.

If the city is found to have violated the Brown Act, decisions made as a result of the meetings could be invalidated. There also could be criminal prosecution of elected officials, but that is highly unlikely, Francke said.

Proposals to develop Home Ranch--so called because it is where the Segerstrom family settled in 1915--have been debated for nearly a decade. Segerstrom & Sons developed South Coast Plaza, the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the Westin South Coast Plaza hotel and South Coast Repertory.