After briefly, and privately, considering the sale of Gilroy
Gardens to a group of foreign investors, the city council voted
unanimously Monday night to hold a public meeting on the matter
Oct. 27, according to the city clerk.
After briefly, and privately, considering the sale of Gilroy Gardens to a group of foreign investors, the city council voted unanimously Monday night to hold a public meeting on the matter Oct. 27, according to the city clerk.
In a closed session Oct. 6, the council discussed the “unsolicited” and “unexpected” offer by TanGram Global Group and Jangwon Group, based in South Korea and Guam, to buy the park and the 536 acres of mostly untouched land it sits on. Under state law, the council may hold closed sessions to discuss only the price and the terms of payment being offered for a particular parcel of property – which it did Monday – but not the property’s future or any development plans. That is something the public will take part in with the council in two weeks. The city purchased the land for $13.2 million in February with the promise of protecting it from future development.
The entire council has said it wants to hear from residents, and city staff is assembling a task force of community members to help the council determine the future of Gilroy Gardens, but the off-shore proposal – and the council’s closed session consideration of that proposal – occurred before that could happen.
Mayor Al Pinheiro has said the council always intended to bring community members in on the discussion, but the surprise offer affected the timing of this dialogue.
Councilman Perry Woodward and the council have also been working to pass his signature sunshine ordinance, which would build on state open government requirements. To convene a closed session under Woodward’s proposed ordinance will require a majority vote by the council instead of the mayor and city administrator simply scheduling a closed session to discuss personnel, legal or property matters.
Assistant City Attorney Andy Faber and Haglund have agreed that the state’s open government law, known as the Brown Act, does prevent the council from striking development plans with negotiators – a process conducted in an open forum by the planning commission and city council – but they have also said “broad” provisions in the act allow the council to discuss issues related to the sale of the Gardens.
“The council needs to stay on topic and stay within the broad safe harbor area provided by the Brown Act,” Haglund said earlier this month. “In terms of evaluating (the investors’) offer, it would not be inappropriate for the seller (the city) to want to know why someone wants to buy it.”
But the Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Diego ruled in 2002 – in Shapiro v. City Council of San Diego – that it is unlawful for councils to discuss the future design work of, say, a high-end resort at a sale site or to gab about future environmental reports or infrastructure and parking improvements there. The Court of Appeal also agreed with the lower trial court’s judge, who wrote that councils must “limit topics to instructions to its negotiators regarding the price and terms of payment for the purchase, sale, exchange or lease of specific real property.”
That price could be as much as $60 million, according to council members’ estimates during the time of the park’s purchase. That money could surely erase the city’s $3.9 million deficit, fix all the city’s sidewalks, pay for a new library and thaw a city-wide hiring freeze.
As for the overseas investors with the money, they have been behind resort-like projects in America before, according to City Administrator Tom Haglund, but their offering price for the Gardens and any development plans they have remain unknown. The council has formed an ad-hoc subcommittee – including Pinheiro, Woodward and Councilwoman Cat Tucker – that will explore the proposal’s details and the companies’ histories.
The California Secretary of State has had a Los Angeles-based business on file by the name of Tangram Global Group USA since Aug. 15, but the person on file could not be reached and calls to the registered office building went unanswered. The secretary’s office also had a Jangwon International Trading Co. on file, but a company profile described a drug company. And Michael Russell – the business broker and president of Carmel Business Sales who has tendered the Gardens offer on behalf of his overseas clients – has said details of the offer will come forward soon.
But Russell’s client’s offer is not the only one the city has received. Parc Management, a Florida-based theme park operator, made a previous offer that a sub-committee of the city council – which includes Councilmen Perry Woodward, Dion Bracco and Bob Dillon – will discuss with the board soon. The company has indicated replacing Michael Bonfante’s struggling horticultural dream with a water park for children.
Then there’s Woodward’s much smaller business idea of selling a roughly 10-acre parking lot to Eagle Ridge. The gated community borders the expansive and vastly under-used parking lot that serves the park’s administrative staff.
