Council Votes Against Downtown Westdome

There will be no Westdome sports arena in downtown Santa Ana, the City Council decided Monday night, and efforts to select and finance another site will begin with the appointment of a citizens’ commission.

The council voted unanimously to eliminate the downtown site at Civic Center Drive and Flower Street from consideration and to direct the city staff to meet with the four-man Westdome Partnership to discuss ways to legally use the proceeds from a $40-million bond issue to finance the project at another location.

Only Vice Mayor P. Lee Johnson and Councilwoman Patricia A. McGuigan voted against later motions to form the citizens’ committee and to have the city staff provide commissioners with information.

Fears Loss of Project

Johnson said he feared the action would mean that Santa Ana will miss an opportunity to get an arena and that the project will go elsewhere in Orange County.

Last month, in approving the $40-million industrial development bond for the Westdome project, the council designated the downtown site as the arena’s location.

Because the bonds are tax-exempt, they must conform to complex IRS regulations and, according to tax laws, industrial development bonds such as these are tied to specific sites. The bonds were approved for the downtown site, and a transfer to any other site must be approved by the IRS.

Mayor Daniel E. Griset said the city would be traversing “uncharted waters” in attempting the transfer. An IRS spokesman said current laws do not govern such transactions.

Griset said he decided to drop his support of the downtown site because of neighborhood opposition to increases in traffic, pollution and noise and because relocation of Santa Ana Stadium to make way for Westdome also was opposed by many people. The Westdome partners and some council members earlier had called the decision “politically motivated” because this is an election year and Griset is expected to announce his candidacy for the state Assembly next month.

Johnson, McGuigan and Councilman John Acosta also said they did not feel it was right to take action before an environmental impact report is complete. Until that process is completed and the project comes up for final approval, Johnson said, “the issue of a site doesn’t really become ripe for consideration.”

Councilman Wilson B. Hart disagreed, saying that the issue is “as ripe as rotting mackerel.”

Allan Durkovic, spokesman for the four-man Westdome Partnership, said the partners hope to develop the arena somewhere in Santa Ana despite his recent statement that it could only go downtown. “I would say nothing’s impossible now,” he said.

He said an IRS ruling allowing the bonds to be transferred would be a “step in the right direction,” but he added that other financing methods for the 20,500-seat arena are being studied.

Residents fighting the project and members of a group called Save Our Stadium, who opposed Westdome because Santa Ana Stadium would have been razed to make way for it, were elated by Monday’s action.

SOS members held a wine and cheese victory celebration after the council meeting. Spokesman Ron Heike said the group will continue with plans to gather signatures to put a proposition before city voters that would require the preservation of the stadium.

Residents of Washington Square, a neighborhood to the north of the downtown site, sent a letter to the City Council last Thursday stating their opposition to Westdome and arguing that “there are no feasible methods to mitigate the impacts of a large sports-entertainment facility in our midst.”