City readies for Home Ranch money

Lolita Harper

COSTA MESA -- As time ticks off the clock in anticipation of the Ikea

groundbreaking, city officials are making sure they are prepared to

receive and then distribute $2 million promised to city schools in the

Home Ranch development agreement.

City Manager Allan Roeder said the City Council will hold a study

session July 8 to consider the possibility of placing conditions on the

funds before handing them over to school officials.

The Home Ranch development agreement, adopted last year, calls for the

Segerstroms -- the dynasty family that owns the site of the massive

development -- to give $2 million in a lump sum to Costa Mesa high school

and middle school students when the first building permits for the

project are drawn. Costa Mesa High School, which serves those grades,

will receive $1 million, and Estancia High and TeWinkle Middle schools

will split the other $1 million.

Ikea is expected to begin construction first, marking the end of a

20-year battle to develop the final 93-acre piece of farmland held by the

Segerstrom family.

Upon pulling the permits, the Segerstroms will cut a check for the

lump sum to the city. The city will, in turn, distribute it to the

appropriate foundations set up by the receiving school officials.

Roeder said the council will discuss next week the possibility of

placing a council member on either, or both, of the foundations or

mandating that any foundation meeting be held in a public setting.

“There are some points we want to make sure the council is comfortable

with before we turn [the money] over,” Roeder said.

Council members negotiated the development agreement, which makes them

the custodians of those funds, Roeder said. Roeder said he and his

staffers want to discuss all options.

Councilman Gary Monahan said he believes the foundations should be

“watchdogged” but does not think it is the council’s role to do so. He

said a committee of residents would be better suited to monitor the

money.

“Last thing I want to do is stick someone from the council on there to

constantly interject city opinion,” Monahan said.

Talks about disseminating the funds are preliminary as building

permits for the site -- just north of the San Diego Freeway, between

Harbor Boulevard and Fairview Road -- have not yet been pulled. Roeder

said the Ikea portion of the development is in the “plan check” phase.

Construction activity on the site so far has consisted of trucks

scraping and drying out the soil before it is replaced as a base for the

new store, city planners said. The grading and building permits are

anticipated in the next few weeks.