A lawsuit filed late last month alleges that the developer of a controversial gas station and housing project in National City “provided personal financial favors to a staff member of the Mayor” in exchange for help gaining city approval for the project.
The lawsuit, filed Jan. 24 by Micaela Polanco, president of La Vista Memorial Park and Cemetery in Lincoln Acres, stems from an ongoing dispute over what should be built on a vacant lot at the corner of Sweetwater Road and Orange Street near the southern border of National City.
The lawsuit alleges that local gas station and retail entrepreneur Adeeb “Eddy” Brikho provided unspecified financial favors to National City Mayor Ron Morrison’s executive assistant, Josie Flores-Clark, in exchange for Flores-Clark’s help “engag[ing] in communications with National City planning staff regarding” approval of Brikho’s application to build a gas station, car wash, convenience store, drive-thru restaurant and several apartment units on a .68-acre vacant lot one block away from the La Vista cemetery.
City planning staff recommended the project’s approval but were overruled by the city’s planning commission on Dec. 2 after community members turned out in force to oppose the project. The project was scheduled to be brought before the City Council for reconsideration one week later but was removed from the agenda after Brikho abruptly withdrew his application hours before the meeting.
Polanco said she filed a public records request on Dec. 4 demanding documentation of Flores-Clark’s and other city officials’ communications with Brikho but was stonewalled by the city, compelling her to sue.
“We had no choice to file the lawsuit to get that information,” she said. “There’s a lot of concerns about the whole project and all of the people involved inside National City.” Polanco said she and other opponents of the project planned to attend a Feb. 4 meeting of the National City Council to provide more details about allegations in the lawsuit.
“We’re concerned that the way in which this project was moved forward through the staff of the National City Planning Department was not correct and may have been the subject of improper influence,” said Polanco’s lawyer, Michael Aguirre, a former city attorney for the city of San Diego who is now in private practice.
Flores-Clark did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Morrison spoke at length about the lawsuit, saying “there is absolutely nothing to” the suit’s claims, many of which, he said, stem from a misunderstanding about what city staff members can and cannot do to help opponents of a development proposal stop the project.
“This thing has turned out to be the biggest soap opera I have ever seen in my life,” Morrison said. “No one can figure out where this is coming from…They [Polanco and her business partner, La Vista executive director Luisa McCarthy] hired a consultant and an attorney and a private investigator. They’re making all kinds of claims. All kinds of crazy stuff.”
Asked last week if he had provided financial favors to Flores-Clark, Brikho said, “Absolutely not…Everything we did, we submitted everything through the city and that’s it. If the community doesn’t like the project, we pulled out. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The vacant lot at the center of the dispute is a triangular wedge of dirt, grass, concrete and trash abutting a residential neighborhood near Interstate 805. Once part of a semi-rural unincorporated county community called Lincoln Acres, the property was annexed several years ago by National City and has been the site of several development proposals that met with mixed responses from neighbors.
Brikho’s proposal for the site drew especially vehement opposition because, as neighbor and Lincoln Acres resident Alisha Morrison (no relation to Mayor Ron Morrison) said, the project was too big, too convoluted and would bring too much traffic to an already congested area. The combination of cars waiting in a drive-through line, buying gas, getting a car wash and stopping at a convenience store while a funeral procession tried to reach the cemetery using the same two-lane street “would be a nightmare,” she said.
Alisha Morrison said neighbors in the area already regarded National City warily because of what she described as the city’s ongoing efforts to annex more territory and ultimately absorb the entire neighborhood into city limits. Brikho’s development, she said, added to fears that the city’s financial interests would trample residents’ quality of life. “They’re slowly trying to break us down,” she said.
The Brikho family, which has developed numerous gas stations and other retail outlets in National City and other communities in the San Diego region, has ties both to Ron Morrison and to Flores-Clark. The family routinely donates turkeys for Morrison’s annual Thanksgiving turkey giveaway and, as long as a decade ago, partnered with Morrison and Flores-Clark on a Christmas ham giveaway to sailors at nearby Naval Base San Diego.
“They’re very good friends of the Mayor and Josie and they’ve been in a longstanding relationship for quite some time,” said McCarthy. “It makes you wonder why is this being passed so quickly and why are things being done under the radar? Is this normal practice?”
Ron Morrison denied that the Brikho family’s ongoing involvement in city politics influenced the city’s decision-making process about Brikho’s development proposal. Polanco’s lawsuit, he said, stemmed in part from Polanco’s and McCarthy’s disappointment that Morrison and Flores-Clark did not do more to stop the proposal from moving forward.
Morrison said Flores-Clark did help to arrange a meeting between Brikho, Polanco and McCarthy, but, as a city employee, she was prohibited from taking a position on Brikho’s development proposal or seeking to help or hinder its approval.
Polanco and McCarthy “let us know that they were unhappy with this development and…they asked Josie to set up a meeting” with Brikho, Morrison said. “They had their meeting [and] all kinds of things came out of that…They went on a total crusade.”
Polanco said she would continue pressing National City officials to produce records documenting Flores-Clark’s and other officials’ communications with Brikho. And she said she planned to ensure members of the public hear her accusations.
“You’ll know more after [Tuesday’s City Council meeting],” she said.
Re: morrison
I’m shocked! Shocked!
What is shocking is that 3 weeks after this article was written is that they are still making reckless and slanderous accusations without a shred of facts or evidence.