Council Policy 700-10 (attached) deals directly with the disposition of City-owned real property. It establishes a procedure to be followed by which unused and marginally used City-owned real estate is reviewed for its potential public use, and for designating unneeded parcels for lease or sale. It also provides a methodology for the sale or exchange of City-owned real estate and establishes policies for the leasing of City-owned real property. Following this process is critical to ensuring the City engages in the most public process in how it sells or leases land it owns.
Unfortunately, Mayor Faulconer has not followed this process. In a San Diego Union Tribune article on May 19, 20171, the Mayor and his staff confirmed that they had engaged in exclusive lease and sale negotiations with FS investors, the backers of the SoccerCity Initiative, over the Existing Stadium Site and 20 acres of Murphy Canyon Leased Property. These negotiations came after 25 private meetings between the Mayor, City Staff and FS Investors conducted between January 2016 and February 2017.2 As a result of these exclusive negotiations, it appears as though the City and FS investors have reached, in part, a tentative agreement on a 99-year lease and sale of the Existing Stadium Site and Murphy Canyon Leased Property Site.
The Mayor has repeatedly stated that the City has no use for the Existing Stadium Site and the Murphy Canyon Leased Property. Once the City determines that a City property is surplus, in order to comply with Council Policy 700-1 O(B) and Government Code Section 54222 the City is required to first notify all governmental agencies operating within the City as to the availability of the property, and give 60 days to respond before the property is put up for public sale.
To ensure this process is transparent and open to public scrutiny, the Council should immediately declare the Existing Stadium Site and the Murphy Canyon Leased Property surplus property, in compliance with city and state law. This would allow the City to give notice to other governmental entities operating within the City of the properties' availability, and give them 60 days to submit an offer. Once this process is followed, the next step could be the development of a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the sites.
We request that a resolution declaring the Existing Stadium Site and the Murphy Canyon Leased Property surplus property be docketed for City Council consideration.
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