Court Backs Ventura in Mall Battle

VENTURA —  A state appeals court Friday handed Ventura yet another victory in the city’s long-running battle with Oxnard over a $100-million expansion of the Buenaventura Mall.

“We are ecstatic, smiles from ear to ear,” City Manager Donna Landeros said.

The unanimous 28-page ruling was handed down by three justices of the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Ventura, which heard oral arguments three weeks ago.. But the decision may not end Oxnard’s two-year battle to overturn Ventura’s approval of the mall expansion and thereby save sales-tax dollars Oxnard might lose.

Oxnard City Atty. Gary Gillig said he will brief the City Council on the ruling during a closed-door meeting Tuesday night.

Oxnard, which has spent about $600,000 in legal fees arguing that Ventura’s 1995 approval was improper, has 60 days to decide whether to appeal to the state’s highest court, Gillig said.

“I’m not saying that’s what we’re going to do,” Gillig said. “It is something that will be discussed as an option.”

As for the ruling, Gillig said Friday that he had yet to read the opinion and declined to comment on it.

Friday’s ruling stems from five lawsuits brought by Oxnard--each shot down by the lower courts over the past two years. The suits were consolidated into one case for the appeal.

The suits alleged flaws in the mall project’s environmental review and the financing terms included in the development agreement, contending the city’s deal with mall developer The Macerich Co. constituted a gift of public funds and violated state environmental law.

Oxnard also questioned whether late changes to the final lease agreements compromised the validity of the project’s contracts.

But in its ruling, the court disagreed with Oxnard on all counts, at times characterizing some of the city’s legal interpretations and arguments in the appeal as “absurd” or “misplaced.”

The court found no constitutional wrongdoing by Ventura either in the financing method for the project or in the city’s assessment of the project’s environmental effects.

“If the Ventura City Council should decide it is in the city’s best interest to participate in the development of a shopping center, it is not for us to say otherwise,” the justices wrote.

“Oxnard points to no specific constitutional provision, charter provision or statute that forbids a city from participating in a shopping center,” they wrote.

Construction on the mall expansion began in October and is scheduled to be completed by October 1999.

The project, initially approved by the Ventura City Council in 1995, will add a second floor of small shops and add two anchor stores, doubling the size of the 33-year-old midtown shopping center and making it the largest mall in the county.

Breaking ground on the project was a risk Ventura officials and mall developers admit to taking in light of the pending appeal. So far, the city has spent $221,000 defending itself in the case, said Steve Chase, an assistant to the city manager.

“We essentially have been hounded by the city of Oxnard for the better part of 2 1/2 years,” said Chase, who has been the city’s point man on the mall expansion project. “We swallowed hard, risk was taken and now the court on all counts has issued a very solid decision in the city’s favor.”

Ventura Assistant City Atty. Amy Albano said even if Oxnard does attempt to put the case before the state Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal ruling gives the city confidence with its point-by-point opinion in the city’s favor.

“The court ruling is really a vindication of what we’ve been saying,” Albano said. “Oxnard came out with legal terms and legal issues that were nothing more than smoke and mirrors, and the court saw through it.”

Oxnard City Atty. Gillig acknowledged the California Supreme Court rejects far more cases than it agrees to hear.

But he said aside from dropping the case altogether, Oxnard could also decide to petition for a rehearing before the Court of Appeal.

A rehearing would only be possible if the city found an egregious error on the part of the court or a misstating of state statute, Gillig said.