Official with Department of General Services says city’s approach toward sale could scare off potential buyers.

By Mona Shadia Updated: Monday, October 26, 2009 10:40 PM PDT There are 14 comment(s) View Comments

The state has sent Costa Mesa a strongly worded letter asking city officials to reconsider a plan to restrict future uses [...]]]> Plans for land use irk state

Official with Department of General Services says city’s approach toward sale could scare off potential buyers.

By Mona Shadia
Updated: Monday, October 26, 2009 10:40 PM PDT
There are 14 comment(s) View Comments

The state has sent Costa Mesa a strongly worded letter asking city officials to reconsider a plan to restrict future uses of the Orange County Fairgrounds solely for fair and noncommercial development purposes.

The Department of General Services, the state agency authorized to sell off the fairgrounds, sent Mayor Allan Mansoor and the City Council a letter Friday, expressing Sacramento’s alarm that a Specific Plan being ironed out by the city could scare off potential buyers of the 150-acre state-owned property in Costa Mesa.

“Adopting this Specific Plan will severely restrict the future land uses available to potential buyers,” Teresa Bierer, the department’s acting deputy director, wrote in the letter. “We are concerned that the fairgrounds’ commercial value will be negatively affected by preparing and adopting the Specific Plan. While we are, of course, sensitive to local matters, we also need to be sensitive to the economic consequences that could result from this action. We also need to carry out the Legislature’s direction to ‘obtain the highest, most certain’ return from the sale of the fairgrounds.

“…If the city moves forward with the Specific Plan and the fairgrounds’ value is diminished, the state will consider whatever options may be available to preserve the fairgrounds’ value,” Bierer’s letter continues.

Councilwoman Katrina Foley interpreted this last excerpt as “a threat of litigation from the state.”

“All I know is our City Council is unanimous in supporting the property remaining a fairground,” she said. “The politicians who were lobbying to sell the property are going to have to be accountable to the people.”

The state put the fairgrounds up for sale earlier this month after former state Sen. Dick Ackerman lobbied state lawmakers on behalf of the fairgrounds’ board of directors to have the property’s sale listed in the state’s budget.

The deadline for potential buyers to submit their bids is Jan. 8.

On Oct. 20, the City Council directed staff to develop a Specific Plan.

The plan is expected to be finished in early January, in time for the bidding deadline.

At the meeting, City Manager Allan Roeder said his staff was looking into the legality of putting the fairgrounds issue up for a referendum.

Mansoor reiterated his and the council’s request to look into the legal matter after receiving the letter Monday.

“I’m increasingly skeptical of what’s going on in general, and if there are no guarantees in place to keep the fairgrounds as it is, perhaps the best thing to do is take it off the market,” Mansoor said.

A legal opinion on whether restricting the fairgrounds’ use through a ballot initiative will be presented at the Nov. 3 council meeting, Roeder said.

“It’s disheartening, to say the very least, to get this letter at this point and suggest as though DGS have never heard that the city was insistent on keeping the grounds as a fair and exposition center,” he said.

Of course it is. Nothing has been done to reindustralize the state. To get out of the hole, both California and the U.S. as a whole have to get back to making things, and not worrying so much about the smokestacks. The CM PRESS wrote [...]]]> Article source • October 10th, 2009 • CM Press

Of course it is. Nothing has been done to reindustralize the state. To get out of the hole, both California and the U.S. as a whole have to get back to making things, and not worrying so much about the smokestacks. The CM PRESS wrote about the upside down pyramid of the U.S. economy more than ten years ago and we stated then that an economy built on paperpushers, agents and middlemen is heading for a fall.

We’re sorry to say that we were right.
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ARPAIO SAYS HE’LL KEEP ARRESTING ILLEGALS NO MATTER WHAT THE FEDS SAY
LINK
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RIGHEIMER STARTS TO GET IT ABOUT THE OC FAIRGROUNDS

Jim Righeimer has a slap-himself-on-his-forehead column in the almost daily Daily Pilot today about the sale of the OC FAIRGROUNDS. LINK

We congratulate Righeimer on finally understanding at least part of the what’s likely to happen.

Unfortunately, Righeimer’s idea of an initiative to restrict land use and keep the place as a fairgrounds won’t fly. Even if enough signatures are gathered and an initiative makes it to the ballot, and then wins, the courts will strike it down (I’ll spare you the legalese).

Anyway, here’s our column from CM PRESS # 771 of August 4, 2009 that lays it all out for you.

Maybe Righeimer read our column, and that’s why he now understands a little of what is likely to happen.

ORANGE COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS–HOW REAL ESTATE FORTUNES ARE MADE!

Maybe there really are some folks who want to buy the OC Fairgrounds and keep it as a fairgrounds forever.

However, there have to be some who see it as a chance to make many millions of dollars with very little risk.

Here, by the numbers, is how the gravy train can run for those who want to make a killing in real estate (in simplest terms). Note that the first step can be used both by those who really do want to keep it as a fairgrounds forever and by those who want to make a big profit:

1. Set up a non-profit corporation and buy the fairgrounds as fairgrounds,with fairgrounds zoning–the land is valued much less for such uses than for some other uses–so you’ll get it for a song. Tell everyone who will listen that you intend to keep it as fairgrounds forever to help with your charitable causes and to serve Costa Mesa. You especially want to help the kids.

2. Once you own the fairgrounds, land bank it for a couple of years while servicing your debt (at least in part) by intensifying its present fairgrounds uses.

3. Work to elect a friendly Costa Mesa City Council.

4. Once you have a friendly City Council (you only need three of the five to be on board with you) claim that the fairgrounds is not bringing in the money you thought it would and you need a zoning change for a large portion of the land so you can maintain the remaining part as a reduced size fairgrounds in order to continue helping poor children who will all become gang members unless you help them with after school programs, etc.

5. Have your pals on the Costa Mesa City Council vote to change the zoning on a large part of the land to residential, office, retail or even a few institutional uses. (Laugh silently to yourself as you hear your Council stooges talking about Costa Mesa being a city with a heart, and how we have to help the children.)

6. Sell those rezoned parts of the land at the much higher price you’ll get with the new zoning. In public, shed [crocodile] tears for the loss of the land but claim that, gee, you need the money to help the poor at risk children. Also say that the new smaller fairgrounds will be much better than the old larger version because you’re going to bring in some new activities for children and families.

7. Manipulate public opinion by having your dimwitted surrogates (on the Council, in the blogosphere, and in the local press) claim that those who see what you’re doing, and who speak out about it, hate children and especially poor brown children, and that unless you can proceed, these poor brown children will turn to gangs and terrorize the city.

8. Laugh as you go to the bank to count your money.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.