Volunteers supporting open space in Orange turned in over 9,000 signatures on each of two petitions today.

The number of signatures is significantly higher than the 7,144 signatures needed to force the Orange City Council to either rescind the highly controversial zoning change and the development agreement or to send the decision to the voters. A cushion of over 2,000 signatures gives the referendum sponsors an ample margin to make up for signatures where addresses or signatures do not precisely match the information on file with the Registrar of Voters.

The volunteer effort was countered by an extraordinarily dirty and expensive campaign by the developers, who imported paid blockers and political operatives working for a Central Valley temporary help agency. Affiliates of the developer boasted that up to 100 paid goons were on their payroll. Their behavior resulted in numerous police calls and complaints to the state Attorney General and Secretary of State. As many as a dozen printed pieces were dropped and mailed, a bogus petition was circulated, and residents were harassed with both live and robocalls urging them not to sign the petition or to revoke their signatures. It is estimated that the developer may have paid over a quarter million dollars to block the efforts of the volunteers.

The exact identity of the developers is hidden behind a number of Limited Liability Corporations, but the local front man for the developers is John Martin.The property proposed for development is the former Ridgleline Golf and Tennis Club, which for decades had been treated in planning documents as recreational open space. Martin and his partners, including officers of Milan Capital, purchased this property and the Sully Miller gravel pit at the top of the real estate bubble and are now scrambling to obtain zoning and general plan changes to justify the inflated prices they paid, which were seen as high even during the height of the bubble.

Volunteers gathered this evening to relax after an effort that many local leaders saw as heroic.

Meanwhile, political observers are wondering how Orange City Council members will respond to Martin, the volataile developer who only this week ordered Council Member Fred Whitaker to "Shut Up!" in a meeting with open space proponents, Mayor Cavecche and city staff. Martin's political contributions have prompted formal complaints to the Orange City Attorney and the California FPPC against Martin, his multiple LLC's, and Council Members Bilodeau and Whitaker. The four members of the Council who approved the project - Bilodeau, Whitaker, Cavecche, and Dumitru,  now have their reputations joined to Martin's distasteful tactics and heavy-handed consultants.

Wednesday August 10th and Thursday August 11th are the last days to collect and turn in signatures.

We are sprinting to the finish line and every signature counts.

We will turn in signature books at City Hall at 3:00 PM Thurday afternoon.We need every book  and every signature by then.

At the City Council meeting on Tuesday night, the Council voted to ignore our first petition for thirty days.

Our volunteers have persevered, against goons and blockers, viciously dishonest mail, hit pieces,  a desperate lawsuit to stop counting signatures, and a bogus petition.  We might have to duck for the next two days as they start throwing kitchen sinks.

But the finish line for our signature gathering is in sight, and it's time for that last burst of effort.

When we turned in over 12,000 signatures on a referendum petition opposing a change to the General Plan, we hoped that more members of the Council would join Tita Smith in working towards a compromise that would preserve more recreational open space.

We were sorely disappointed by four members of the Council - Cavecche, Dumitru, Bilodeau, and Whitaker. 

We asked the Council to postpone further action until the signatures were verified.

Instead of listening to the more than 12,000 voters who signed petitions, they listened to the developer, and proceeded to pass two more parts of the developer's plans - the zone change and the development agreement.

Since all three documents need to be consistent, we are asking voters to sign two more times- once to oppose the zone change, and once to oppose the development agreement.

What are a general plan, zoning code, and development agreement?

The General Plan addresses several broad categories, including housing, traffic, noise, cultural resources, etc.

The Zoning Code implements the land use element of the general plan with greater detail.

The  Development agreement  contains the specific terms of the flawed deal between Ridgeline Equestrian Estates LLC and the City of Orange,

Why couldn't we get all three signatures at once?

When a legislative action is passed, voters only have 30 days to gather signatures to ask the council to repeal the decision or allow the voters to decide. The City Council passed the General Plan Amendment on June 12.  The second readings on the Zone Change and Development agreement was scheduled for June 26.   This would have allowed  citizens to carry all three (3) petitions over the big Fourth of July weekend.   The developer asked that they postpone the hearing for the Zone Change and Development Agreement until July 12th.  The City Council agreed.

Local leaders encouraged  the developer to look again at plans for this parcel and the Sully-Miller parcel and provide a comprehensive plan that would allow both for profitable home construction and for preservation of recreational open space.

Project planner Ken Ryan spoke for the developer at the meeting,  repeating many of the bogus claims that had been published in flyers. In an Orange County Register article,  Ken Ryan equated the democratic referendum process with terrorism, and was quoted as saying, "My general attitude is to not negotiate with terrorists." 

So for the volunteers, it's back to the voters to get two more signatures from each voter on two more referendum petitions.

Who knows what tactics the developers will resort to now that their deceitful flyers and goons have proven inadequate and counterproductive?

Tracy Wood at the Voice of OC begins a three part series on parks in Orange County, with OC Park History is a Tale of Two Counties. Her first part is about the history of Orange County breakneck development.

The City of Orange is similar to other park-poor cities like Santa Ana, Stanton, Westminster and Garden Grove.

Better-planned cities, like Fountain Valley and Irvine, are rich in parks, including every type of park from the neighborhood tot lot to the regional park.

Most cities try to have four acres of neighborhood parks for every 1,000 residents, and north Orange County generally falls far short of that goal. Northern cities have more than three times as many people per park acre than cities in the south, according to county and federal census statistics.

In Stanton, there is just one acre of park for every 1,830 people. Santa Ana's ratio isn't much better — 1,271 people per city acre of park land.

Orange has only 155 acres of developed  parks for 136,416 people, plus a closed dump site which has yet to be developed.