The following is the basis of an address I delivered to the Democratic
Club of Oxnard this Wednesday night.

/s/ Martin Jones

As many of you may already know, I have asked to speak about a lawsuit I
filed earlier this year in which I allege that the city of Oxnard
violated certain laws generally known by all of us as the Brown Act. I
have made those allegations in the context of the process through which
the city entered into a Development and Disposition Agreement on
November 26 of last year with a developer to build retail stores and a
12 screen theatre in downtown Oxnard. While I know all of you have heard
of the Brown Act, I thought I would first give you a little background
on that law.

The actual name of the law that most of us know as the Brown Act is the
Ralph M. Brown Act. This open meeting law prescribes exactly how local
agencies in California are to conduct their decision making process with
the entire emphasis of the law being focused on the need for legislative
bodies to give adequate notice of matters they are deciding and include
the public in its deliberative process. This is what most of us believe
the democratic process should be.

Let me tell you how I believe the open meeting law applies to my case
which I hope many of you will see as really an action brought on behalf
of all the taxpayers and not myself as regardless of the outcome, it
will result in no financial gain on my part. A successful party to a
Brown Act lawsuit receives no compensation.

I think most of you know Oxnard has made several efforts to build a
theater project in the downtown area centered on the block bordered by
“A” and “B” Streets and Fourth and Fifth Street. They have been so
focused on building a theater in the downtown that they have turned down
attempts by developers to build theaters in any other part of the city.
These efforts to build this project in downtown have not been successful

After the last unsuccessful effort the city repeatedly stated in several
agendas it was meeting in “closed session” for the purposes of
negotiating a “sale” of the property on which it had hoped to build a
movie theater. Let me emphasize that these agenda items specifically
stated over and over that a “sale” was being discussed. Not a
development agreement, not a city subsidized project, not eminent domain
to take the real estate of private property holders to be given to a
developer.

On November 26, 2002, however, the city announced what it actually
intended to do with that property in the form of a very lengthy and
technical Development and Disposition Agreement which includes, among
several other things, the following:

1. In exchange for building a 12 screen theater to be rented and
operated by an independent theater operator, the city will guarantee the
developer up to 1.6 million dollars a year for any rental payments the
theater operator fails to make for a period of 25 years. This means if
the 12 screen theater dos not survive more than one year, the taxpayers
will pay 1.6 million a year for 24 years for what would likely be an
empty building. As a specially designed building such as this is not
going to have any other use.

2. The city would condemn and take from other taxpayers any downtown
property the developer wants for his project and in fact the city,
against the desire of the owner, is taking the former Bank of America
building on the corner of Fifth and “A” Street.

3. The city guaranteed it would build a parking structure on the corner
of Third and B Street which is another huge public subsidy giving the
developer free parking.

4. The developer was given, free, a 90 day option to buy any city owned
land in the entire downtown Oxnard area bordered by Wooley Road, Second
Street, “C” Street, and the railroad tracks. In other words, at no cost
to the developer, they were given a free option to buy property worth
literally millions of dollars. This option has since been extended at
least 3 times at no cost to the developer and many of you may know this
has become a major public issue when the city has refused to sell such
land to other property owners citing that that they can only sell to the
developer. While that is outrageous in and of itself, this of course
means that the developer is handed a fully taxpayer subsidized theater
project and then at no cost, is given, to the exclusion of anyone else,
the right to buy any nearby city property that might suddenly become
more valuable solely because of the construction of the project paid for
by the city’s taxpayers and not the developer. That is an unbelievable
giveaway on top of the 1.6 million annual subsidy.

5. The developer puts up virtually no money of his own or take any
personal risk. The developer formed a limited liability corporation for
this project and with the 1.6 million a year guarantee, can of course
walk to any bank and get free financing without risking any money of his
own.

These are just a few of the items contained in the DDA which is an
extremely complex document and not a sale of anything. In response to a
Public Records Act request, we have learned that the city spent nearly
$70,000.00 on an outside law firm to negotiate this complicated
agreement which is again nothing close to a sale. Moreover, no notice
was given that the city was offering these subsidies which might have
resulted in competitive and better bids from other developers who would
have flocked to an offer such as guaranteed rent of 1.6 million a year
and what has now become a one year free option to buy any city owned
property that the developer would believe is going to be more valuable
because of the very theater project the city is paying for.

I also want to mention at this point that much of the foregoing in the
DDA reminds me of findings made by the Ventura County Grand Jury
concerning Oxnard’s agreement with the operator of that city owned land.
One finding states:

“That the city immediately retain outside counsel expert in government
contracting and procurement to assist it in reforming and renegotiating
the present agreement to ensure it is in conformity with California law
and good business practice.”

Another finding by the Grand Jury states the city should only proceed
with expansion of its golf course “after full disclosure to the public
of the probable true cost of the venture including consideration of the
increased local competition and falling public participation in the sport.”

These comments about Oxnard’s business practices relative to its golf
course are very similar to what I think anyone with good sense would
think about this theater DDA. First, we are subsidizing a form of
entertainment with “falling participation” to quote the grand jury as
DVD’s and other media reduce attendance at movie theaters. Next, the
city chose to do this in a dishonest fashion by concealing the fact that
it was not selling its property but had decided, without outside public
scrutiny, to hide how much the public will spend on this venture and so,
as the Grand Jury observed with the golf course, fails to disclose to
the public the true probable cost of the project.

In any event, once this DDA was revealed to the public, I think I can
say it came as a great surprise to anyone following the issues involving
downtown Oxnard. Most of us following this project were led to believe
that the city had abandoned its efforts to build a theater project. That
is basically what they told us publicly after their last unsuccessful
effort to build a theater and we believed the city council when it said
it was selling the land to someone who might take the risk of building a
movie theater in downtown. The agendas said they were continually
meeting in closed sessions to discuss a “sale” of the property and not a
publicly subsidized project which benefits one particular developer who
I believe continually receives favored treatment by the city. No one was
given the opportunity to say whether or not tax dollars potentially
exceeding 40 million dollars should be spent to insure that a theater
would be built in downtown Oxnard. And, it is my guess that no one was
given that opportunity because the public would say there are plenty of
other and more worthwhile ways to spend that money throughout the city
or that someone other than the favored developer might have come along
with a better offer.

Once I became aware of this DDA, I did some research and found a very
similar case, known as the Shapiro case, had recently been decided by a
California Court of Appeals involving an attempt in San Diego to build a
sports facility. Mr. Shapiro alleged that the San Diego city council had
repeatedly met in closed sessions and that their agenda notices
similarly stated the city was considering the sale of public property.
They then suddenly announced they had entered into an agreement which
provided a huge public subsidy for the construction of a sports arena.
The court found that the city acted in violation of the Brown Act by
intentionally trying to hide from the public that the few members of the
council had decided, without public input, that it would be in the best
interests of the city to spend millions of dollars in taxpayer money to
subsidize a for profit venture. The court stopped the project.

I have the same set of facts in my lawsuit. Everything in the DDA was
negotiated and agreed upon without any notice to or input from the
public which was led to believe that only a relatively small empty lot
in downtown Oxnard was being sold to someone. And I might add that
someone was never specifically identified This is contrary to the Brown
Act and what everyone would agree is contrary to how we believe
government should work.

After discovering the Shapiro case, I met with a local attorney by the
name of Fred Rosenmund. He pointed out that the Brown Act requires,
prior to filing suit, that the city has to be put on notice that a
taxpayer believes a Brown Act violation has occurred to give the city
the opportunity to rectify the violation. In a lengthy letter he helped
me to prepare, we outlined all of the foregoing and delivered our notice
to the city. The city still refused to act according to law which would
have meant properly noticing as an agenda item that the city was
negotiating a publicly subsidized theater project and invite proposals
from developers showing, to me, that they did not want to have to
publicly offer the same subsidies to any other developer. Or let the
public know just how much they were willing to give away. I filed suit
and am represented by an attorney by the name of Richard Tentler who I
was fortunate enough to find shares my views on how the democratic
process should work in local government. We made a good faith offer to
the city to settle my lawsuit to spare the taxpayers money. The offer
was ignored.

I also want to add that in order to try to discredit me with personal
attacks over this lawsuit, some staff and council members have tried to
paint me as someone who is against the theater project and looking for
financial gain. Whether or not a theater is built in downtown Oxnard is
irrelevant to me and the lawsuit. My objective is to stop Oxnard from
making decisions in this secret manner. Which they consistently do. I
will not gain a penny if my lawsuit is successful. The most I would
receive would be reimbursement for my attorneys fees.

I would also like to share with you my view that what I have described
here in terms of how this theater project was secretly negotiated is
consistent with a pattern how city government works in Oxnard. I believe
the city’s golf course, which coincidentally loses about 1.6 million a
year which is the potential annual loss by the theater project, has
received favored status in the form of secret deals and misinformation
on the part of the city. For instance, for years they have claimed the
golf course makes money and they have made a big public production of
presenting a check supposedly representing the annual profit from the
golf course. Only after I initiated a grand jury investigation which
confirmed that I was accurate in my view that the city is dishonest in
making these representations has a city official, for the first time in
10 years, admitted the golf course loses money. We are now told, for the
first time since it was built, that this loss is justified because it
creates a “recreational opportunity” for the public but the public was
never allowed to give any input and decide if millions of dollars should
be spent in this fashion versus recreational opportunities for children
or the larger portion of the pubic that cannot afford to play golf. Now
the same thing has been done secretly in deciding this huge potential
outflow of tax dollars for a theater has been made without any input
from the public.

In closing, I have sensed an overall dissatisfaction by the public in
how Oxnard operates. Taking on a governmental agency, however, is not
easy nor pleasant. I appreciated the opportunity to speak here with the
hope that you will see that my actions are not motivated by self-gain
and that my claims are legitimate and that for the benefit of all of us,
we need a more open government process in Oxnard. In that regard, let me
make a last prediction about the theater project.

We have been told the focus of the project is to be “A” Street which in
a historical sense is Oxnard’s downtown main street. I believe we will
next see that the project will instead be focused in a different
direction to favor property owned in the downtown by the developer. This
will come about not by open public discussion but simply something
decided upon and final as the city will do almost anything for the
developer. If you do not believe this, ask for a copy of the current
design plans and you will be told you cannot see them even though you
are paying for the project. And to show just how far the city is willing
to go for this one particular developer, one downtown landowner asked in
a recent meeting with city staff if he could use his building for a
particular use. In front of him, the staff called a representative of
the developer and asked if he objected to that use. The developer did
object and staff told the owner he could not use his building for that
particular use. That is how government operates in Oxnard and we need to
stop this.

Some members of the City Council and senior staff may say that I simply
do not understand Redevelopment law and that these things I and others
complain about can happen because downtown has been declared blighted by
the council and therefore subject to Redevelopment law. With due
respect, I do not think that is how Redevelopment law works and even if
we believed that, I do not think any of us wants government to be run in
the fashion I have described tonight and use redevelopment law as a
justification. The fundamental question is: why was such an expensive
project secretly negotiated behind closed doors and kept from the public?

Again, thank you for this opportunity to express my views on this matter.