Editorial: City must be open about fair deal

Costa Mesa’s pitch to Sacramento in its bid to acquire the Orange County Fairgrounds from the state is due Wednesday.

The deadline that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office has given the city for a proposal closes a 30-day window of exclusive negotiations between the two sides.

They started soon after the state rejected seven initial bids on the fairgrounds, including a $6.5-million joint offer from the city and Orange County. The county has since left the picture.

We thank the governor for at least giving the city an opportunity to talk exclusively with his representatives in trying to strike a deal.

We also wish city officials good luck and hope they can broker an agreement — or the outlines of one — that would keep the OC Fair & Event Center, the pride of Costa Mesa, under local control.

But we urge city officials to live up to their stated intentions of being transparent in this endeavor and open to reasonable scrutiny from a taxpaying public.

We cannot help being skeptical. Already the City Council has formed a fairgrounds negotiation sub-committee behind closed doors — not exactly the kind of openness we would like to have seen. We also demand to know how exactly Costa Mesa proposes to pull off a deal, given that the city is struggling fiscally and the state has speculated that it could fetch at least $96 million through the sale. And therein lies the rub.

The city government should be explaining to the public precisely how it can pay for such a deal — not necessarily how much money it is willing to sink into the fairgrounds. We are sensitive to how crucial it is to keep a price tag under wraps during such talks, particularly with the city working under a tight deadline.

So far, however, Costa Mesa officials have been somewhat vague and have said relatively little about this in open portions of City Council meetings. At last Wednesday’s hastily convened special meeting, for example, City Manager Allan Roeder said in open session that the city intends to buy the fairgrounds “without utilizing Costa Mesa public funds or putting Costa Mesa taxpayers at risk.” Without going into detail, he added that the city was looking to finance a deal through a consortium.

Yet how will it be possible to finance a purchase of the fairgrounds — or a leasing deal that would allow the city and other interested parties in a consortium to rent the property from the state — without spending taxpayer dollars or raising local taxes? We know real estate transactions are often exempt from public meetings laws, but city officials owe the people of Costa Mesa a peek at the game plan.