D.A. Probes Home Ranch Meetings

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

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

The complaint was made by Paul Flanagan, a member 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 bounded by Sunflower Avenue, the San Diego Freeway, Fairview Road and Harbor Boulevard.

Flanagan is president of Costa Mesa Citizens for Responsible Growth, formed to oppose Home Ranch.

Resident and group member Sandy Genis, who heard about the meetings through city documents, asked the council what the meetings were about and if she could attend. She said she believes there were at least two sessions, but the city would not confirm that.

She was told she could not attend and that she could not be given details about what was discussed. Genis says the public was not told about the process in which council members requested public benefits from the developers.

“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 sent a letter to the city asking for a written narration of how the meetings were set up and what was discussed. The office will use the response to determine if there should be a formal investigation.

The city officials and developer met several times between March and June. 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 said that she is confident that there was no Brown Act violation. She said the meetings were an effort to widen the negotiating process and include elected representatives earlier so that developers could be aware of what public benefits the council members might request in later public meetings.

Segerstrom has offered several incentives to the city. The developer will provide a $2-million endowment for three high schools; pay $8.46 million in traffic improvements, including the widening of the Fairview Street bridge over the San Diego Freeway and $3.5 million for a Susan Street offramp from the freeway; a $500,000 contribution toward the construction of a nearby firehouse; and 30,000 square feet of land to build it on.

“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 the Planning Commission also were present. We were under advisement that it was OK as long as 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 could also be criminal prosecution of elected officials, but that is a highly unlikely, Francke said.

Several proposals to develop Home Ranch--so called because it is where the Segerstrom family settled in 1915--have been debated for nearly a decade, but all have met with resistance from neighbors. Segerstrom & Sons is one of the region’s best-known developers of high-end retail projects, including South Coast Plaza, the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the Westin South Coast Plaza, South Coast Repertory and several office buildings.