Sounding Off:

On Monday I joined nearly 300 of our neighbors at the Costa Mesa City Council Chambers for an informational hearing conducted by Assemblymen Jose Solorio and Van Tran on the sale of the Orange County Fair and Exhibit Center. Solorio and Tran, both of whom voted to sell the fairgrounds early last summer, jointly conducted the meeting, at which we heard a dozen panelists present their views.

Councilwoman Katrina Foley carried the ball for the city, and reiterated the city’s intention of making the fairgrounds purchase so undesirable by imposing a strict specific plan and locking-in the use to that of a fairground in perpetuity via a June ballot initiative.

County Treasurer Chriss Street presented graphic evidence that, regardless which method might be used, the cost of borrowing funds to purchase the fairgrounds makes it all but unworkable if the property is restricted to its current uses. The representative of the state Department of General Services who spoke did absolutely nothing to raise the hopes of those of us in the audience looking for a glimmer of encouragement that the sale, somehow, might be quashed. In fact, when he told us they had established no minimum bid and had not done an appraisal, many in the crowd began to grumble. It seemed to many of us an irresponsible way to manage such a huge transaction.

Kristina Dodge, chairwoman of the fair board, gave a very feeble presentation, as did Steve Beazley, the chief executive of the fair. He seemed more intent on protecting and increasing his salary and those of the “other 85 full-time employees” than anything else. I don’t think that was lost on Solorio and Tran. Planning Commission Chairman Jim Righeimer gave a pitch for his Save the Fair movement, which was supposed to result in a restrictive ballot measure in June. It sounds like he’s abandoned that effort now that the city has taken up that banner.

The real fireworks began when more than 40 of our friends and neighbors stood to speak to the issue. Every one did so with much passion. The horse crowd was out en masse, extolling the virtues of the equestrian center. They have very recent, painful experiences with the fair board, which has chopped their area from 15 acres to 7.5 and has said recently that board members want to boot the horse folks off the site and pave it over for more parking. One early speaker, Gus Ayer, from Fountain Valley who runs a local blog on which he has addressed this issue, made a very pointed statement to Solorio and Tran about the shady circumstances of the fair board hiring former Sen. Dick Ackerman to help them in their efforts to encourage the sale of the fairgrounds. That’s right, the fair board provided, through their hired gun, the impetus for the bill that codified the sale of the fairgrounds, Assembly Bill 22. And, as if that were not enough, several board members gathered in a meeting that may have violated state law to form the core of a nonprofit corporation to bid on the fairgrounds!

I came away from that three-hour-long meeting encouraged by the tremendous outpouring of concern by residents and other stakeholders. I also came away frustrated. I was angered when Solorio, during the discussion of his vote on AB22, said there had been no local input.

At the end, Tran, always the politician, gave the assembled press the headline they needed: that he would carry a bill to the legislature to guarantee that the fairgrounds would remain as such forever.

Even if he does so, there’s no time for it to be considered and passed before the sale is consummated, all of which will happen within the first 60 days of the new year. He, of course, can just throw up his hands and say, “Well, I tried.”

Each of us should call or write to our local elected officials to encourage the city of Costa Mesa to proceed with haste in the creation of the specific plan and the ballot measure for June. We should also flood the governor’s office with requests for him to exercise whatever authority he has over this process and cancel the sale. The clock is ticking.

GEOFF WEST lives in Costa Mesa.