Some of you Cypress and Los Alamitos residents may recall a curious little episode at the outset of the long rezoning campaign for Measure GG, by the owner/developers of the Los Alamitos Race Course property. The property owners convened two public outreach meetings in April of this year to promote their master plan showing meandering walking paths and a park through residential and retail commercial development in an effort to get the public to sign away its zoning rights over the last large open space in the city.
Some of you Cypress and Los Alamitos residents may recall a curious little episode at the outset of the long rezoning campaign for Measure GG, by the owner/developers of the Los Alamitos Race Course property. The property owners convened two public outreach meetings in April of this year to promote their master plan showing meandering walking paths and a park through residential and retail commercial development in an effort to get the public to sign away its zoning rights over the last large open space in the city.
Just prior to the first of these two publicly noticed meetings I was asked to attend and record the proceeding by some Cypress residents who knew of me as a local reporter and news producer, with a history of reporting on the race track area. Anxious, they said, about what they were hearing and seeing vs. what the commercial uses the proponents of the plan could actually put there. These concerned citizens of Cypress wanted someone there to record what the skilled presenters actually said. I showed up with one camera, set up in the back of the room, and began to record the proceeding. The attorney present representing the property owner abruptly demanded over the PA system that I stand down my recording or, he threatened, the meeting would not commence. Having every reason to presume that this was in effect a public meeting with all the earmarks of a public forum, I continued to record. At that point several members of the public called out to the moderator “let him record, what are you afraid of?”
The lawyer for the property owner then walked to the back of the room and told me directly that the meeting would not commence until I stopped recording, informing me this was a “private” meeting and if I did not stand down I and my camera would be removed by security, or law enforcement. After some moments of troubling debate with the property owner’s attorney, in which I protested that it “looked like a public meeting to me,” I began seeing that others in the audience were starting to record also on their phones and pads, with renewed calls of “let the meeting start. . .what are you afraid of,” toward the moderator. At that point I made the decision to shut my camera off so that the meeting could proceed. Yet troubling questions remain.
A “private” meeting? In a very public Cypress Community Center, previously and publically noticed, with city staff and the city manager present, for the expressed purpose of inviting the public, to engage them on a subject of broad importance and interest to the public, which indeed the public would soon have to vote on in a public election. What’s private about that? Another question would be what was in that presentation and on those enlarged renderings they presented to the public that night that was too “private” to be recorded and documented for later reviewing or reporting on? As the public asked of the presenters for the property owner that night “What are you afraid of?” Later that evening I was told by the presenters for the property owners if only I had requested permission from them I “probably would have been allowed to record.” So I then asked if I could record the second meeting held for the same purpose by them a few days later. “Permission denied.”
See here’s the thing, a meeting called for in a public space for a public purpose, open to all the public has all the earmarks of a public gathering and therefore invokes the same public meeting rights afforded to media as well. Even the City of Cypress Municipal Code recognizes exemptions to the film permitting process in public settings for “news media. . . or for private family use.” So it would seem both I and those brave souls who raised their own personal recording devices that night had a reasonable expectation of their right to do so.
The relative merits or demerits of the developer’s specific plan are for the citizens of Cypress to decide. The issue that concerns me is why a proponent of a public ballot measure, claiming to be upfront and transparent, would go to all the trouble of presenting their land use plan in a setting that has all the earmarks of a public meeting, then claim to “privatize” these meetings of compelling public interest in order to restrict the media from recording and documenting what was shown and said. And what is a more compelling public interest than the voting process? There seems to be a disconnect here between what should be the business of the people conducted in an unfettered and open forum vs. the narrow interests of the property owner presented in a controlled and restricted environment. You would think a property owner with the best intentions and concerns for the community would want more press for their development plan, not less.
Given their actions that night in April, I would suggest the appropriate question to ask now, is not what are the property owners afraid of, but what should the voters of Cypress be afraid of in Measure GG, that the proponents did not want the public to record and remember when it goes to the polls on November 8?