Anderson wants investigation

Some welcome new light might be shed on several of the secretive, behind-the-scenes activities that surrounded the city’s contentious, ill-fated Old Town redevelopment project.

Newly elected Councilman John Anderson wants an independent investigation into alleged improprieties regarding Old Town planning, with specific reference to the closed-door meetings held by the Town Center Ad Hoc Committee the past two years.

A former Old Town developer claims that city leaders were involved in an aggressive campaign to keep residents from signing petitions seeking a public vote on two high-density Town Center zoning ordinances in late 2005 and early 2006.

Greg Brown was a principal with Michael Dieden and Walter Marks in Old Town Yorba Linda Partners, which once held an exclusive negotiating agreement with the city to plan a redevelopment project for the downtown area.

“It was made very clear…that the funding of an information and [petition] suppression campaign was a requirement of any future extension of the…agreement,” Brown stated.

Brown said, “[City Manager Tamara] Letourneau directly asked me in an Ad Hoc meeting…if OTYLP had reserved sufficient monies to wage the campaign and what our projected budget would be.”

Letourneau has said the city didn’t “ever require OTYLP to fight the Town Center zoning petition referendum drive, and it was not ever a condition of any contract or extension.”

The developers eventually put up $115,000 for the anti-petition campaign, but the City Council rescinded the ordinances after petitioners gathered 9,790 and 9,771 signatures.

An investigation also might include the city manager’s participation in two Building Industry Association-led strategy sessions on the citizen-sponsored Right-to-Vote on Land-Use Amendments initiative (Measure B) in December 2005.

City officials blacked-out Letourneau’s hand-written notes on one meeting agenda before releasing the document to Jim Horton in 2006, prior to his wife’s election to the council.

Brown said he attended the meetings and claimed Letourneau “pitched the home building community to pledge funds to defeat Measure B.” Builders and real estate-related interests eventually put up $174,150 in a failed attempt to beat the initiative last June.

Anderson’s proposed probe deserves support from residents, no matter how they voted in past elections. Maybe nothing illegal or improper occurred in the Town Center planning process, but a redacted document and secret sessions only raise suspicions.

That’s also why citizens should support Anderson’s suggestion that council committee meetings be opened to the public and that the council revise the city’s musty ethics code from the 1970s.

A FINAL NOTE

The successful grassroots Yorba Linda Residents for Responsible Redevelopment group has changed its name to Yorba Linda Residents for Responsible Representation to better reflect the political action committee’s mission, board members announced.

“We’re not just about the downtown but about development throughout Yorba Linda,” leader Ed Rakochy said, noting that YLRRR will focus also on smaller in-fill projects to maintain the community’s desire for low-density development and setback requirements.

Speakers at the group’s Jan. 30 general meeting asked the 47 attendees to get involved in the June 5 election for the crucial fifth council seat. “We need a voice of the people, not the Building Industry Association or other special interests,” Rakochy said.

The group’s nine-member board is expected to endorse 28-year council veteran Hank Wedaa for the position. The five-time mayor previously served from 1970-1994 and 1996-2000.