Leaders: Cancel fair plans

Costa Mesa Mayor Pro Tem Wendy Leece and Councilwoman Katrina Foley want Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to cancel the state’s proposed sale of the Orange County Fairgrounds.

The issue will be taken up at tonight’s City Council meeting. The two councilwomen are scheduled to make a joint presentation on the fairgrounds and will ask fellow council members to vote in favor of requesting that the governor cancel the proposed sale of the 150-acre site in Costa Mesa.

“We are just requesting confirmation from the City Council that we are all acting unified so that everybody knows that we are united in our position, which is in the best interest for the city of Costa Mesa to cancel the sale,” Foley said.

In June, the City Council unanimously adopted a resolution opposing the sale of the fairgrounds.

In July, the Assembly voted to put the fairgrounds up for sale. In October, the state officially put the property on the market. The deadline for potential buyers to submit bids is Jan. 8. The state is hoping to gain up to $180 million from the sale to plug a hole in the state budget.

Foley and Leece will raise several concerns regarding the fate of the fairgrounds if it is sold and the timeline the state has imposed on those looking to submit bids, arguing that things are moving too quickly.

If the city or the county is interested in buying the property, which the city has entertained, it would have less than two months to draft a proposal, consider the matter publicly, arrange for financing the proposal and submit the request.

“This timeline is coming at Mach speed, and it needs to be stopped,” Foley said.

The councilwomen will also point out the overwhelming popular opposition to the sale, which was evident at last week’s town hall meeting on the fairgrounds organized by Assemblymen Jose Solorio and Van Tran, Foley said.

“Maybe the governor doesn’t understand the passion people have for the fairgrounds,” Leece said. “I think we feel that because it’s [the sale] on a fast track and there are so many unanswered questions, we are respectfully asking the governor take the Orange County Fairgrounds off the list.”

Foley added that if the bureaucracy of public administration is preventing the fairgrounds from operating to its maximum potential, then “let’s work on lifting these restrictions to make it more efficient. Selling the fairgrounds seems like an extreme request for what I consider to be problems that have solutions. I have a little bit of a problem with using taxpayers’ money to buy another taxpayers’ property.”