City tries to save part two of sports complex

Dave Brooks

Surf City officials are doing their best to salvage the second

construction phase of the Huntington Beach Sports Complex, after it

was abandoned by contractor Joe O’Connor, who has a history of failed

sports projects.

The attorney and soccer enthusiast is tied to at least seven

defunct corporations involving sports construction and a handful of

lawsuits connected to similar failed projects in Oregon and

Washington, according to public records obtained by the Independent.

Community Services Director Jim Engle said the city will continue

to pressure O’Connor to finish, or return the nearly $950,000 he was

paid to build batting cages, a soccer pavilion, and skating

facilities at the Goldenwest Street facility. But if O’Connor

abandons the project, as he did on projects in 1998 in two Pacific

Northwestern cities, Engle said he will bring a new contractor on

board and continue to put legal pressure on O’Connor.

“We’re going to go after him hard,” Engle said.

On July 14, the city filed a lawsuit against O’Connor after he

missed a March 20 completion deadline. O’Connor blamed the delays on

bad working conditions and increased costs, arguing that he would

need an additional $300,000 to finish.

O’Connor and his company, Community Parks Foundation, were brought

on the project in June 2003 to meet financing requirements that

mandate a nonprofit entity be hired to complete a portion of the

sprawling $19-million Sports Complex.

O’Connor never registered Community Parks Foundation for nonprofit

status as required by law, Internal Revenue Service records indicate.

Two other companies run by O’Connor that are doing business with the

city of Huntington Beach, National Community Sports Foundation and

Intersport Systems Group, are also not properly registered. All three

companies have been dissolved for failing to renew their articles of

incorporation, according to Oregon Business Registry records.

Four more defunct corporations where O’Connor served as either

president or a board member have surfaced, including one called

Oregon Community Sports Assn., which was responsible for two domed

soccer pavilion projects in Salem and Yakima, Wash.

Oregon resident Nancy Ornee was hired as the project manager for

the Salem Sundome Soccer Pavilion, an indoor soccer arena marketed by

O’Connor as a prototype for rain-soaked cities.

The project was a disaster from its inception, plagued with debt

and red-tagged by Marion County building inspectors, before

eventually falling over in a windstorm, Ornee said.

Ornee described O’Connor as a charismatic businessman constantly

in denial about his failure to meet the most basic permitting and

regulatory requirements. Even in the worst of times, when O’Connor’s

paychecks to his employees began to bounce and building inspectors

ordered a work stoppage, O’Connor refused to acknowledge that

anything had gone wrong and continued to actively pursue new

investors.

“The whole thing was doomed to failure from the beginning,” she

said.

O’Connor was finally forced to leave when a major investor,

Birdair Inc. of Amerhest, N.Y., wrested the project away. In a

February 1998 letter to O’Connor, Birdair Vice President Garry Becker

said his company wanted O’Connor off the project because of his

“growing tendency to intermingle the truth with what [O’Connor] would

like to believe,” classifying the project as a “physical as well as

financial mess” that is “going to cost someone a small fortune to

have any chance at rectifying [O’Connor’s] mistakes.”

O’Connor threatened to sue Birdair for kicking him off the

project, but never filed. Instead, a company called Pacific Mobile

Structures filed a civil complaint against O’Connor shortly before a

windstorm knocked the pavilion over, Marion County court records

show.

Court records also show that three other collection agencies have

filed suit against O’Connor in the past eight years, as well as a

2001 eviction of a rental O’Connor was listed as sharing with his

father-in-law Harvey Miller. When reached for comment Friday, Miller

said he was unaware of the eviction.

It remains unclear what soccer pavilions, if any, O’Connor has

successfully built, although in a July interview he claimed to have

constructed pavilions in Ireland and Mexico.

The Independent has requested copies of public

employment-references O’Connor submitted when he put in his bid for

the job, but to date, the Huntington Beach Community Services

Department has not turned that over.

Although no clear timeline is available, Engle said that former

department director Ron Hagan was responsible for choosing O’Connor.

Hagan did not return phone calls for comment.

The idea of the Sports Complex was rejected twice by voters, once

as the advisory Measure GG in March 1996 and again as Measures J, K

and L in November of that year. Both gauged whether residents were

willing to levy themselves with property assessments to pay for the

center and both were defeated with a seven-percentage point margin.

The Sports Complex was revived a year later by the City Council

and marketed as a $1.5 million project. The price tag eventually shot

up to $19 million.

There is still about $240,000 in public funs left for the project

-- mostly from a contingency fund -- an amount Engle said should have

been much higher.

“There was a payment made to O’Connor that shouldn’t have been

made,” Engle said. “Based on the schedule, we didn’t have enough

product. Somewhere this slipped through the cracks.”

Engle said he will now focus on finishing the batting cages and

soccer pavilion, most likely with the help of an outside contractor.

“We’re looking at our contingency plans,” he said. “We’re

currently in the process of finding a contractor that can complete

and operate” the sports complex.

* DAVE BROOKS covers City Hall. He can be reached at (714)

965-7173 or by e-mail at dave.brooks@latimes.com.