Koll negotiations with city questioned

June Casagrande

NEWPORT BEACH -- An opponent of the Koll Center expansion has asked

the Orange County district attorney’s office to rule on whether meetings

between Koll developers and three city-appointed representatives

constitute a violation of the state’s open-meeting law.

A district attorney’s representative said his office could not comment

on the matter until after reviewing the request by Greenlight activist

Phil Arst.

But one of the planning commissioners involved, Larry Tucker, said,

“I’d be surprised if it were a violation.”

Tucker, Commissioner Ed Selich and City Councilman Tod Ridgeway were

appointed to a committee that, in spring and summer of 2000, met with

Koll Center developers to create a development agreement. The agreement,

which included a requirement that the developer pay $2 million for

traffic improvements, was subsequently brought before the City Council in

an open meeting. The council ultimately approved the developer’s request

to amend the general plan in July.

But Arst said in a statement that this may have violated the Brown

Act, a state law that requires some government meetings to be held in

public.

The city chose Selich, Tucker and Ridgeway in part because they are

all professional developers with expertise to bring to such negotiations.

Arst noted that there’s a downside to this approach: “Greenlight

objects to even the appearance of developers running the city and doing

it behind closed doors,” he wrote.

“Everything we did was under the City Council and the city attorney,

so I assume everything we did was correct,” Selich said.

The Koll Center expansion is the subject of the city’s upcoming

special election. On Nov. 20, residents will vote on Measure G, a ballot

initiative seeking to permit the 250,000-square-foot expansion of Koll’s

existing office complex near John Wayne Airport.