Land for Swap - Directors Abdicate Responsibility

Goings On LWV Issue 26 November 2009

I heard the word “LANDSWAP” at the November GRF meeting falling from Milt Johns’ lips. How often have we been warned about the San Sebastian taking over the parking lot next to the library? Now it has been said out loud and in public ON TV. A land swap….a tiny little piece of land slated to be a pocket park presently owned by the City of Laguna Woods which is behind the Aryes Hotel and the self storage units FOR THE PARKING LOT. Use your voices people!!! This has been the plan ALL ALONG.
PCM has a financial interest in the San Sebastian. They helped build it via partnership with the developer(s) and Milt Johns announced in a meeting that he was “in daily contact with Standard Pacific” during the construction of that property; this, even though LWV was completely out of the picture at that point.
IT IS A TOTAL AND COMPLETE YET REPEATED BREACH OF ETHICS to have ANYTHING to do with suggesting a land swap that is to PCM’s advantage.

A land swap must be equitable. That is, a real or perceived value of that given up must be at LEAST equal to what is received as well as being as valuable as the land is valuable to those receiving it.

The lot could be sold, say, for $100. Value exchanged for both parites. However, the lot ENHANCES the value to the San Sebastian far more than $100 would enhance GRF (the members.) There would therefore be a breach of duty to make that sale. It is inconceivable that the land exchange could be of equal value.
It is not about land area at all…size for size. It’s about the final REAL value overall.

For example: we negotiate the trade of horses of equal size, age and racing record. Each is a triple-crown winner. One is a gelding and one is a colt. Who gets the better deal?

Bob Hatch knows this as a real estate appraiser. The rest of them know it because they have been told over and over and over and over. PCM knows it but WANTS THE LAND!
Lloyd Foster can sit on the dias and mumble his ignorance telling people how “that’s a GRF issue” but what he repeatedly fails to say is that IT IS THE MUTUALS WHICH VOTE FOR AND ARE IN CONTROL OF GRF. The board members of the mutuals are the corporate members of GRF. IT IS the business of the mutuals. It IS the business of UNITED.

Speak up now or we’ll be back in the same situation we were with the land swap that sold us down the river the last time, people. How much of our land are we going to let PCM buy sell and swap with abandon? Are you going to put up with losing more of our land at the whim of PCM? Get your voices in gear and SPEAK UP. Write your legislators, law enforcement agencies and let your board members know you don’t like this behavior and it is to STOP. If YOU don’t raise your own voice and allow this to happen you have nobody to blame but yourself.