Ventura to Proceed With Plans to Expand Mall

VENTURA — Denouncing their Oxnard neighbors for “disingenuous” legal tactics, Ventura officials said Tuesday that they would proceed with plans for the Buenaventura Mall expansion despite Oxnard’s plan to appeal its failed lawsuit.

“The electorate is committed, the city is committed and the retailers are committed,” Steve Chase, assistant to the city manager, said during a news conference. “From our point of view, the mall project will go forward.”

Chase said work on the $100-million expansion, which will increase the mall’s square footage more than 50% as well as draw Robinsons-May and Sears, Roebuck & Co. from the Esplanade Mall in Oxnard, could begin as early as July.

“The department store and mall owners are preparing the proper construction documents as I speak,” Chase said, adding that workers would probably begin tearing up the mall parking lot, and relocating water and sewer lines around J. C. Penney and the future Sears site by fall.

Oxnard must appeal the most recent court decision, where a retired judge rejected all of Oxnard’s arguments against the Buenaventura Mall expansion, by June 15, Ventura City Atty. Bob Boehm said.

Ventura officials began to go on the offense when they learned last week that the Oxnard City Council intended to discuss the mall issue at its Tuesday meeting.

That was followed by a phone call from Oxnard’s interim city manager to Ventura City Manager Donna Landeros, which Landeros characterized as “an abbreviated request to end the Buenaventura Mall project and cooperate with Oxnard on the Oxnard Town Center.”

The Oxnard Town Center is a super regional mall proposed for farmland north of the Ventura Freeway, across from the Wagon Wheel restaurant.

Chase and Boehm attended Oxnard’s City Council meeting Tuesday night, saying they wanted to make sure that Oxnard officials did not misrepresent the facts in the dispute.

Before the meeting, Ventura officials said they believed that the Oxnard council would try to convince its residents that public money used on litigation is well spent, and to continue the perception that Oxnard could win an appeal--a scenario that Boehm considered highly unlikely since retired Judge J. Kimball Walker ruled in Ventura’s favor on all counts, in four separate cases.

For example, Oxnard City Atty. Gary Gillig told the council that the judge’s decision included some favorable comments about Oxnard’s case and its ability to be appealed.

“I think the parties are probably going to appeal this case, and I believe that probably we have given you ample basis upon which you might be able to get your foot in the door,” Walker said.

“In our opinion, you will prevail,” said Bruce Tepper, a Los Angeles-based lawyer representing Oxnard in its legal fight.

Oxnard officials made it clear that they had no intention of backing down.

“We are in this so deep, we might as well appeal,” Mayor Pro Tem Bedford Pinkard said. “Oxnard did not start this little war across the river. Ventura started this.”

Five years ago, Ventura filed suit against Oxnard to prevent it from going ahead with plans to build a regional shopping center near the cities’ joint border.

Oxnard Councilman Tom Holden told Tuesday’s audience that it was unfair for Ventura to suggest that Oxnard started the mall legal battles.

“I find it interesting that our neighboring city is portraying us as the bad, litigating monster that won’t let them move forward with the mall they want to have,” Holden said. “If that is the case, then it’s a monster verses a monster. . . . As Yogi Berra said, ‘It’s deja vu all over again.’ ”

Anticipating an appeal, Ventura Mayor Jack Tingstrom on Tuesday morning had a strongly worded three-page letter hand-delivered to Oxnard Mayor Manny Lopez that accused Oxnard of trying to hide its true reasons for opposing the Buenaventura Mall expansion.

“It is disingenuous to pretend that the litigation is about blight to the Esplanade Mall. It is all too clear that Oxnard’s sights are set on retail opportunities at the Oxnard Town Center and big-box centers along Highway 101.

“Why else is Oxnard spending millions of public tax dollars to prop up the unsuccessful Oxnard Town Center, plus the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of public tax dollars in legal fees in order to stall the Buenaventura Mall project?”

Oxnard council members said they were perplexed by Tingstrom’s letter, saying Ventura has never considered cooperation.

“We’ve been trying to negotiate with Ventura on a joint effort to bring in the regional mall, and they have not wanted to step up to the table on it,” Pinkard said.

Tingstrom’s letter goes on to say that Ventura is eager to work with both the county and the city of Oxnard to improve the Ventura Freeway corridor, especially the border area between the two cities around the Santa Clara River.

But before that can happen, Tingstrom writes, Oxnard must refrain from further litigation on the mall project, cease all financial and legal support for lawsuits against Ventura by Oxnard City employees who reside in Ventura, and terminate its overall strategy of obstruction and delay.