Petrovich says second email uncovered in lawsuit shows city's long opposition to gas station
Developer Paul Petrovich says that a second email uncovered in his lawsuit against the city of Sacramento suggests that the city’s opposition to a gas station he planned to build in his Crocker Village project went back months before the city council voted against allowing the station.
The suit accuses the Sacramento City Council of denying Petrovich his due process rights. He has claimed that the email and internal discussions among council members and staff show that the council never intended to give him a fair hearing.
The email between two city attorneys in May 2015 discusses whether there was a legal basis to deny a conditional-use permit for the station. The correspondence, which was sent by city attorney James Sanchez, noted that a councilmember wanted to define the proposed station as a "hyperfuel" station with more pumps. The councilman, who isn’t identified in the email, wanted to use the increased activity a larger station would create as a reason for denial, according to Sanchez’s email.
The timing of the email — May 6, 2015 — predates by six months the council vote in November 2015 denying a permit for the station. But it also predates, by more than a month, the city’s planning commission hearing on the matter. At that meeting, on June 11, 2015, the commission approved a permit. A neighborhood group in neighboring Curtis Park subsequently appealed that decision to the council.
“I didn’t even stand a chance before the planning commission meeting,” Petrovich said. He said at the time of the May emails, the city attorneys wouldn’t have even had the city planning staff report on the issue. That report would’ve showed the city addressing the environmental issues raised by opponents to the gas station, he said.
The gas station would have operated under the Safeway brand and would have been built along with a Safeway grocery store, he said.
In response to a request for comment, the city attorney’s office did not directly address the contents of the email or the permitting process for the proposed gas station. Sanchez said that the email included “privileged attorney work-product” and was not for public dissemination.
Sanchez has previously said he is confident that the council acted properly in the process that led to denial of the permit.
An email that was previously uncovered in Petrovich’s lawsuit, and reported last month by the Business Journal, appears to state, before the council meeting was held, that the council would vote against the permit.
The Nov. 16, 2015 email, sent by an aide to then-Mayor Kevin Johnson, includes a sequence of events that was expected at the council meeting to be held the next night.
“JS punches up to make motion, Hansen seconds: I move to reject the staff recommendation and to deny the conditional use permit for the Curtis Park fuel center,” the sequence of events states.
At the Nov. 17 council meeting, Councilman Jay Schenirer made the motion to reject the permit, which was seconded by Councilman Steve Hansen.
According to Petrovich, the emails were included as part of voluminous city documentation put into the record as part of the suit. The city has subsequently requested to withdraw the emails from that documentation, he said.
Petrovich’s suit against the city is set to be heard early next year.
Ben van der Meer covers real estate, development, construction, water issues and the business of sports.
