There’s an incredible scandal brewing at the Orange County Fairgrounds and Attorney General Jerry Brown better get on top of this before it blows up in his face. The deal to sell the fairgrounds has stunk, and the Attorney General’s office is right in the middle of the muck.

The Fairgrounds is run by an obscure state agency, the 32nd Agricultural District, and their legal representation comes from the Attorney General’s office. Unfortunately, the current functionary has completely failed to protect the interests of the people of the State of California. The Fair Board, political appointeees of the Governator, have gone far beyond violating open meeting laws, and instead have used public funds in a conspiracy that approaches racketeering.

Here’s how the story unfolds.

The Board of Directors of the Orange County Fair Grounds are as arrogant and clueless a bunch of Yacht Party Republicans as you would find anywhere. Their appointments were political plums for big campaign contributors. Until public scrutiny ended the practice, each of them was receiving tens of thousands of dollars a year  in front-row concert tickets complete with catered meals at the Pacific Amphitheatre summer concert series.  

When their perks were taken away, they redoubled their efforts to free themselves from the restraining yoke of government for the “good of the Fair”. There’s a bizzarro feeling when you listen to political consultant Dave Ellis talk about how oppressive government is as he sits as Director of a government agency which is supposed to be acting in the public interest. But somehow, the idea that they receive no public subsidy, other than the 150 acres of land and over a century of history as a county fair, makes them some free enterprise and justifies their plans to chart their own destiny. No furloughs for their employees and no unions while you’re at it, thank you. No pesky open meeting laws. And bring back those free tickets.

As the state budget negotiations unfolded this year, Republicans dusted off Schwarzenegger’s failed plan to sell irreplaceable assets including the LA Coliseum, race track at Del Mar, and other valuable pieces of state-owned real estate.  Fair Board appointees saw this as an opportunity to achieve their long-held goal of removing their fiefdom from public scrutiny, hired Dick Ackerman to lobby for them. As detailed in the Daily Pilot,

The state Assembly voted to put the property up for sale in July thanks to lobbying done on the fair board’s behalf by former state Sen. Dick Ackerman.

“So, we sort of took a different tack and said ‘Why fight the government on this, and let’s see if we can turn it into a positive,'” Dodge said.

Ackerman, who works in Irvine as a partner with the law firm Nossaman LLP, said he was hired to do some of the initial work in Sacramento.

“In order for the fair to be sold, it would require budget language to authorize the state to sell it,” he said. “I did some preliminary work to get the language in the budget.”

Asked why the fairgrounds was the only property successfully inserted into the budget, Ackerman said “nobody else stepped up and said they were interested. Del Mar Fairgrounds thought about it, but they didn’t have the consensus.”

Ackerman would not disclose how much money he made representing the fair’s board, citing attorney-client privileges.

There are some huge problems with the legislation that was thrown together in secret with no public hearings, and pushed through in all-night sessions. One is the estimated value of the property in the budget negotiations. It’s nowhere close to the absurd amount used in the legislation if it can only be used as a fairgrounds, which is what Costa Mesa zoning dictates. Another is the obvious way that the directors have conspired to act secretly. The latest episode has to do with the formation of their non-profit foundation, where six of the eight members of the board have somehow formed a corporation to buy the Fairgrounds without ever discussing anything that has to do with public business.

Let’s recap. The directors of a public agency conspire in secret to sell public assets to themselves in a sweetheart deal in complete violation of the state open meetings law. The Governator and Assemblyman Van Tran are apparently in on the deal. Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor, heir apparent to Van Tran’s Assembly seat, is either part of the deal or clueless; with Allan it’s always hard to tell. And the Assistant Attorney General who is supposed to be protecting the public interest is where, exactly?

Aside from the ethics of the people who are doing this, and the blatant conspiracy to violate the Bagley-Keene act, you might wonder what’s wrong with a benevolent non-profit running this operation. It’s pretty simple. The purchase price will need to be financed somehow, and it’s pretty obvious that the money will come from disposing of non-performing assets, which include all of the low-key, low-intensity uses like the equestrian center and the farm. Meanwhile existing uses will need to be squeezed for more revenue.

If Brown wants to get out from under this emerging cloud of scandal, he should immediately call in the FBI and bring in the most dogged prosecutor in his office to help, while putting a few AG’s on disciplinary leave.

And Democrats in the legislature need to stand up and hold hearings on this deal, exposing this to the sunlight that it needed all along, then carry a bill to reverse the sale, while setting up a much better governance system for these special districts.

Are you listening, General Brown? There is a groundswell of public opinion in Orange County, including 10,000 people who have signed a petition to save the Equestrian Center, and a coalition of Fairground vendors, patrons, employees, and Costa Mesa residents who aren’t going away.

Don’t tell us you can fix a broken state if you can’t fix the broken ethics of your own Attorney General’s office.