Backstory to Chili Cook-Off grants
Well, they finally did it. It took a little tugging and pulling and a bit of public exposure, but Ozzie Silna and Company and the Malibu Coastal Land Conservancy finally issued a press release today saying they were going to kick in their $500,000 toward the purchase of the Chili Cook-Off land. They did so even though they had some reservations about whether the city had actually raised its $500,000 as part of the match. In fact, the city tells me it actually raised about $869,000 between Nov. 15 and Nov. 30, with major thanks owed to Michael Koss, who personally kicked in $250,000. But if Ozzie and Company wants to be suspicious, well, they’ve earned the right if they show up at the next City Council meeting with their $500,000 check in hand, as they’re promising.
However, they couldn’t resist taking a dig at the city while announcing their donation. Let me quote their press release exactly, “The city of Malibu recently lost $8 [million] – $10 million of Proposition 12 and Proposition 50 state grant funds when it failed to complete all the administrative steps necessary to release the grants from the state agencies placing the completion of the acquisition by the deadline in jeopardy.”
Like everything in politics, the way the story is spun isn’t exactly the way it went down. In fact, there is an entire back-story that goes with these grant applications. Some of this I’ve heard around, not for attribution, some of it I’ve surmised from what I know about the players involved in the game. It goes like this:
Once upon a time, some 18 months or so ago, the city applied for a group of grants to help pay for the acquisition of the 20-acre Chili Cook-Off land. The grants would have brought in $2 million each from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Trust, the State Coastal Conservancy and the Wildlife Conservancy for a total of $8 million to go toward the $25 million purchase price. Apparently the enviro conservancies were all hot for this project because it would work to clean up the Malibu Creek and Lagoon, as well as the surf line. It seemed to be going okay with everyone, with everything falling into line and everyone ready to make good on the promised dollars. Then, at the last minute, things began to happen. Practically at the very last moment, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy wanted a few conditions, which effectively would have given it control of the entire Chili Cook-Off area, or at least veto power over what could happen at the purchased site, and the city got very uneasy. Well, the city was not exactly blindsided because rumors had been floating around about Sara Wan sightings, yes, our old friend Sara, who was seen making the rounds with Ozzie Silna. Sara had been beating the drums that the city couldn’t be trusted and the state better seize control of the project. Seize was probably not the word that Sara used, but the gravamen of her intent, I’m sure, was clear.
Now, I don’t know whether the state Department of General Services’ decision that the Chili Cook-Off had to be appraised as parkland and not as commercial property-thereby lowering the value substantially-would have been the same if all the enviro conservancies had signed on to the deal. It’s altogether possible that the DGS was suspicious. I had heard talk it had had problems with the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy before, and maybe it just wasn’t inclined to bend too much. Ironically, these kinds of legal objections usually can be handled fairly easily because, typically, the landowner wants to sell, in fact is often desperate to sell, and they’ll agree to almost any change in the wording just so they can sell to the state and get out. However, when the seller is Jerry Perenchio, it is not a typical situation. I know that no one was about to dictate terms to him, which I imagine came as quite a shock to some of the state agencies and conservancies who are used to getting their own way.
The city had a contingency plan and had been working on alternative funding, which included: bonding financed from future rent from the three commercial parcels on the site, money raised from the local citizenry, $2.5 million from the State Water Board, $2.5 million from Santa Monica College, $700,000 from the county of Los Angeles and $1 million from the city. City officials were able to put together a package and, barring another shoe dropping, they’ve probably got a deal; although I’m loathe to predict it before the escrow closes.
We’ll never know what would have happened if the city couldn’t have put it all together. Would the enviro groups and conservancies actually have stood by while the Cook-Off area ended up as another shopping center and parking lot rather than a central park? At the last minute would the DGS have bent? Would Perenchio have relented and loosened the conditions to make the deal go?
Tune in next week for the next episode of “As the Chili Cook-Off Turns.”
P.S. Judging from some of the letters to the editor, some of my more faithful readers seemed to have confused news coverage and an editorial, or an opinion column, if you prefer. What Jonathan Friedman writes is news coverage. What I write is most definitely an opinion column.