Cleator Sued Over Role in Blocking Condo Project

A Mission Hills property owner has sued San Diego City Councilman Bill Cleator, charging that the mayoral candidate conspired with four other people to prevent him from building a 12-unit condominium project on Goldfinch Canyon.

The suit, filed in Superior Court, also alleges that Cleator, in violation of city law, met with opponents of the proposed project before the City Council’s 1983 hearing, at which Cleator’s motion that the project be rejected was unanimously approved.

The suit argues that Cleator, by meeting in advance with the opponents, helped to deprive property owner James Martinez and his business partner, Irwin Guedalia, of a fair and impartial hearing on their plan to build the condominiums on the one-third-acre site at 821 Montecito Way.

Cleator acknowledged in an interview Thursday that he “briefly bumped into” John Lomac Jr., who lives across the street from Martinez’s land and opposed the condo project, while inspecting the site in 1983.

“While I was climbing around the canyon, Lomac walked over, said hello, and talked to me . . . for a minute,” Cleator said. “I really don’t remember what was said. But it wasn’t a big thing.”

Council members are forbidden by law from meeting with either proponents or opponents of a proposed development before a public meeting by the council on the issue. A key legal question, however, is whether a casual encounter such as that described by Cleator constitutes a violation of that ban.

In past instances, city attorneys have advised council members who had similarly casual meetings with individuals involved in planned developments to disqualify themselves from subsequent City Council debate on the projects. Those rulings, however, vary according to the circumstances of each case.

According to the lawsuit, the city Planning Commission approved a so-called “hillside review permit,” allowing Martinez to proceed with the 12-unit project, in June, 1983. Lomac, however, appealed the matter to the City Council, which heard the case two months later.

Before the council meeting, the suit alleges, Lomac met with San Diego Planning Commissioner Ronald Roberts, who is a close friend of Cleator, and Robert Cleator, the councilman’s nephew and Lomac’s college roommate, to devise a strategy to block the project. Robert Cleator, the suit says, helped arrange for Lomac to meet with his uncle “to discuss the project and look at the property involved.” The fifth defendant, Arthur Stephanson, allegedly misrepresented the project in opposing it at several public meetings, according to the suit.

Bill Cleator said his nephew had contacted him “and asked if I knew anything about the project.”

“I said I didn’t know much, but that I’d stop and take a look at the property,” the councilman said. It was during that visit, Cleator added, that he met and briefly talked to Lomac.

During the City Council’s debate on the project, Cleator strongly criticized the proposal and was quoted in the suit as having said: “Since I’ve been on the council, frankly, I haven’t seen a proposal that I disliked any more than this particular proposal.”

Cleator’s motion that Lomac’s appeal be upheld, thereby preventing Martinez and Guedalia from proceeding with the project, later was unanimously approved by the council--a decision that the plaintiffs claim has cost them more than $25,000.

Cleator said Thursday that his opinion of the proposed project has not changed.

“It was a terrible site for a project like this,” Cleator said. “The cliff’s so steep that you practically fell down trying to walk around where they wanted to build.”

Cleator, who has a strong pro-development record, also joked about the irony of “being sued for voting against a project.”

“In fairness to Bill Cleator, if nothing else, this shows that I’m not pro-development all the way,” Cleator said.