October 28, 2009 7:16 PM
Costa Mesa set to war on Fairgrounds
FRANK MICKADEIT

The minute the state heard the City of Costa Mesa had voted to make it harder to develop the Fairgrounds, it fired off a letter to Mayor Allan Mansoor and the rest of the City Council telling it to back off.
Back off? Mansoor immediately told city staff to prepare documents that would allow the City Council to vote to make it even harder.

The battle is joined!
Watching not so quietly from the sidelines are at least four other interested entities, any of which at any time could be forced to pick a side: The County of Orange, which has emerged as a potential Fairgrounds buyer; the Fair Board; the nonprofit group comprised of several Fair Board members that wants to buy it; and the grassroots Save the Fair group launched by Jim Righeimer.

Every government-affairs, environmental and land-use lawyer in the region should be mending nets. The fishing is about to get extraordinarily good.

To recap: The state this month put the Fairgrounds up for sale. The city last Tuesday voted to create a Specific Plan that would make it harder – though hardly impossible – for the new buyer to do anything other than what's being done there now. The state's letter, dated three days after that vote, asks the city to "thoroughly consider the state and local economic ramifications" of adopting the Specific Plan. If the city proceeds, the letter threatens, "the state will consider whatever options may be available to preserve the Fairgrounds' value."

Mansoor immediately turned to city staff and asked it to pull together the Monahan-Righeimer Plan with all haste and bring it to the council. This would put before city voters the option of embedding into law the Fairgrounds-only land use in such a way that it would take another vote of the citizenry to ever undo it.

Mansoor told me he's not opposed to the state or the nonprofit owning the property, but said that if a fairgrounds-only use cannot be ensured, "perhaps it's best if the sale is called off." Mansoor, of course, doesn't have the power to make the state call it off, but he and the council can sure make it unappealing.

The provision in the Food and Agriculture Code that specifically authorizes the sale of O.C. Fairgrounds – and only the O.C. Fairgrounds – says the state Department of General Services "may" sell it. Meaning the governor or anyone he designates can stop the sale; it won't require an act of the Legislature.

As for damage to any perceived commercial value, I'd say that has already occurred by virtue of all the controversy surrounding the site.

Mansoor told me Tuesday that he expects the council to discuss the option of putting the land-use issue on the ballot directly – rather than requiring signature-gathering – as early as Tuesday night, although it might not be ready to actually vote on it yet. The city attorney, you'll recall, has been skeptical.
Mansoor has every reason to ride this thing for all its worth. He's running for Van Tran's seat in the Assembly, and while he doesn't have an opponent yet, there's always the chance he'll get one.

To the average voter, his name is most closely associated with anti-illegal-immigration issues, including his attempt to have Costa Mesa police become the first in the U.S. to be able to enforce federal immigration laws. Not a bad thing for an O.C. Republican, but taking on a populist issue like the Fairgrounds would help him, especially in the inland part of the 68th District, where a serious opponent is most likely to emerge.
I mentioned in my last column about the fairgrounds that former reporter Jean Pasco has made her biggest personal foray into politics yet, urging the City Council to put a fairgrounds-protection measure on the ballot. That was last week.

We all knew her husband, well-known Costa Mesa veterinarian Joel Pasco, had been battling inoperable cancer, but it seemed as though things might be looking up. Then he died Saturday while on a fishing trip with a friend.
"Joel was a rascal and had so many friends in so many places — pets, wildlife, bonsai," Jean says, alluding to Joel's collection of 3,000 miniature trees. "He cast a wide net. I thought we had more time but, as one friend said, he made a graceful exit. We should all be so fortunate."
 

October 28, 2009 7:16 PM
FRANK MICKADEIT
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