DANA POINT : Petitions Could Force Headlands Plan Vote

A group seeking to overturn the City Council’s recent approval of a $500-million resort plan for the Headlands submitted two petitions to the city clerk Wednesday that could force a citywide vote on the issue.

Each petition contained about 3,800 signatures, more than the required 1,912 needed to bring the resort plan back to the council for another decision, said Robert Wilberg, a spokesman for the group that circulated them during the past three weeks.

If the petitions are declared valid by the county registrar of voters, the council members would be forced to either rescind their vote or put the matter up to a vote, City Clerk Sharon L. Waits said.

Wilberg said the group found residents very receptive to the prospect of a vote on the plan, which allows the landowners to build a 400-room hotel, 150,000 square feet of commercial space and 370 homes on the 121-acre Headlands property near Dana Point Harbor.

“I was pleasantly surprised at the numbers we did gather,” said Wilberg, a candidate for City Council in next month’s election. “Some people thought it was a done deal and we had to convince them it wasn’t. But a lot of people were very supportive of what we’re trying to do.”

Wilberg said the two petitions “basically said the same thing,” that the plan should be the basis of a local vote.

The group beat the deadline for the petitions by one day, Waits said. To qualify as valid, petitions must be signed by 1,912 registered voters, which represents 10% of all the registered voters in Dana Point, Waits said.

Waits said she would do a quick check of the petitions and then pass them on to the registrar of voters, which will have 30 days to validate them. If they are declared valid, the City Council would have to make a decision at its next meeting, Waits said.

Since the 1940s, the Headlands property has been owned by the M.H. Sherman Co. and Chandis Securities Co. Chandis Securities, which oversees the financial holdings of the Chandler family, is a major stockholder in Times Mirror Co., which publishes The Times.