OXNARD : D.A. Says Council Broke Meeting Law
- Share via
Oxnard’s City Council violated the state open meeting law last July when it met in closed session to modify a developer agreement, according to a tentative ruling by the Ventura County district attorney’s office.
Donald Coleman, special assistant to the district attorney in charge of open meeting violations, said the Oxnard council apparently violated state law when it modified an agreement made with the IDM Corp. of Long Beach.
The agreement, which allowed IDM to build a 100-unit senior citizen apartment complex at Bard and Saviers roads, was approved in a public session in July, 1988.
However, two years later the council discovered that the city had mistakenly failed to charge the developer $246,297 in fees. The council, Coleman said, attempted to collect the fees, but IDM threatened to sue in return.
“The council met in closed session to discuss the threat of the lawsuit, and that’s fine,” Coleman said. “But then they agreed to a developer proposal to pay the fees in exchange for concessions in the developer agreement.
“The question is did the council go back to public session to discuss the changes in the agreement, and to my knowledge it didn’t,” Coleman said.
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
