The Oakland-based law firm for SAFER (Supporters Alliance for Environmental Responsibility) followed through with its hint to file a lawsuit challenging the Cypress City Council’s approval of an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) that facilitates the buildout of the entire race course site over time.
Meanwhile, Cypress residents angry over the approval process went after the city’s actions and its aging relationship with its law firm at the Council’s Sept. 22 meeting.
After much consternation and controversy, the Council ultimately voted 3-1-1 on Aug. 25 to approve a much-discussed EIR and a development agreement authorizing a plan to build nearly 1,800 single-family residences on what is now the Los Alamitos Racecourse site.
Council members David Burke, Bonnie Peat and Mayor Pro-Tem Chang voted in favor of the plan, while Council member Rachel Strong Carnahan voted no and Mayor Leo Medrano abstained.
Proponents of the development agreement said they made it effective for 15 years because they didn’t know when the development would start; an item was already on the agenda for this week’s (Sept. 22) meeting to authorize a construction project.
Given the letter the Council has received from Victoria Yundt of the law firm Lozeau Drury, LLP, it is unclear what will happen. The Council’s agenda reflects a pending closed-session discussion of the lawsuit challenging the EIR and the Race Course Development Agreement.
The petition will allege that respondents failed to proceed as required by law because the EIR failed to apply feasible mitigation measures and alternatives for the project’s significant and unavoidable air quality, vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and historic impacts, according to the letter ENE obtained.
The letter claims the EIR fails to adequately disclose, analyze, and mitigate significant indoor and outdoor air quality and VMT impacts.
While the lawsuit is expected, the Lozeau Drury letter was a “Notice of Intent to File Suit under the California Environmental Quality Act regarding the Environmental Impact Report for the Los Alamitos Race Course Specific Plan 3.0 buildout project.”
Supporters Alliance for Environmental Responsibility (SAFER) intends to file a Verified Petition for Peremptory Writ of Mandate and a complaint under CEQA against the City of Cypress, the City Council, and the real party in interest at Los Alamitos Race Course, challenging the August 25 decision.
In short, the petition will allege that respondents (City of Cypress) failed to proceed as required by law.
The Council was expected to respond in closed session during this week’s meeting, according to their published agenda.
At its most recent meeting, citizens upset about the Council’s approval of the project spoke during the Oral Communications portion.
Tom Moore, a 60-year resident and one of the most outspoken critics of the EIR and the project itself, blasted City Attorney Bill Wynder’s actions, suggesting the city’s 28-year relationship with the firm was too long.
He recounted that when Council asked Wynder what the deadline was to approve the racetrack EIR, the answer was simply “tonight,” which Moore said was delivered “defiantly, with an edge.”
“Instead of an answer, we got a dare, and it shut down debate,” said Moore. He added that half a dozen residents asked him afterward whether Wynder was on the racetrack’s side.
Moore said the city spent more than two years resisting district elections, including 18 months of litigation costing taxpayers over $1 million, yet “when residents wanted more time for an irreversible land use decision, suddenly the answer was tonight.”
Moore recalled that Aleshire & Wynder, the same firm employing former city attorney Fred Galante, told a resident in 2022 that her Facebook comment was “potentially libelous,” prompting the First Amendment Coalition to intervene and call it “intimidation, not dialog.”
“I spent a lifetime around attorneys. My father was a judge. My brother and my son are attorneys. The law is rarely explained in one word. It requires reasoning, authority, and context,” said Moore, who claims the city would have been better off changing law firms.
“This council had a chance to change law firms this past year, and the change you made was moving council meetings from Monday to Tuesday.”
Longtime attorney Fred Galante told the Council then he could not attend on Tuesdays.
Moore said he then asked the Council to issue an RFP for new legal representation, arguing 28 years of history has value, but the firm “has become a recurring source of legal exposure, wasted money, and eroded public trust.”
Moore corrected Councilwoman Peat’s implication that the town center is guaranteed by the Cypress Town Center Commons Specific Plan 3.0, saying a guarantee would have required a binding deadline or firm requirement in the development agreement.
Moore questioned whether the city’s law firm ever told the Council it could lock in a town center deadline and how.
Former Council member Frances Marquez, who opposed the EIR approval, said the Council glossed over environmental concerns and dragged an oxygen tank to the meeting to make her point.
“My father died from chemical exposure,” she said, describing how her father used it 30 minutes each morning and evening because his scarred lungs couldn’t clear phlegm on their own. The device shakes air into the lungs and shakes the body violently to dislodge it. She said it “kept him alive a year and a half longer.”
She pointed to the young families on her block “doing everything exactly right” for their kids, contrasting them with her own failed effort to save her father.
“This isn’t about politics,” she said. “Don’t think of the politics or rushing to get something done. Think about how it impacts families,” she asked.
In other action, the Council voted 3-2 to forgive interest payments for a loan of more than $30 million granted to build Arnold Cypress Park.Finance Director Stephanie Sikkema said waiving interest saves the district roughly $614,000 in this fiscal year alone and that total interest over the life of the loan is $6,381,285.45.
Sikkema said she also preferred finalizing the loan interest issue at this meeting to close out the fiscal year and stay on schedule for the city’s annual audit.
Mayor Pro Tem Chang supported relief, but was worried about the park’s future renovation and upkeep costs, including pickleball courts, lighting, utilities, drainage, and parking.
Councilmember Peat objected to the process, saying she wasn’t prepared to relitigate interest and wanted the item continued for a more robust discussion of all the original scenarios rather than “just saying let’s remove interest.”
Mayor Medrano said he originally wanted a different option without interest, and was voted down, but was still uneasy about reversing the decision and binding future councils to a multimillion-dollar waiver. Burke countered that prior councils “locked in” this council by putting the debt on the parks district in the first place.
For clarification, Burke confirmed his motion forgives interest for the entire life of the loan term, not just one year. It passed 3–2, with Medrano and Peat dissenting.
The Council also unanimously approved a proclamation to observe Hunger Action Month. The council presented a proclamation to Mark Lowry, Director of the Orange County Food Bank, recognizing September as Hunger Action Month.
Medrano cited that roughly 22% of California households (27% of households with children) are experiencing food insecurity and that one in six Orange County residents is experiencing food insecurity; in 2025, the OC Food Bank and Second Harvest provided nearly 73 million pounds of food and over 800,000 distribution visits monthly.