Friday, September 7, 2001 Error blamed in meeting furor   By Jason Gewirtz, Staff writer LONG BEACH City officials Thursday said they provided the wrong date and action taken at a closed-door session related to Queensway Bay when they released the information last week. The clarification comes about a week after two residents filed a complaint with the city attorney and the Los Angeles district attorney. The complaints allege that the session violated the Brown Act, which governs open meetings. At issue is a closed-door session where City Manager Henry Taboada briefed the City Council on a proposed land-use exchange regarding the Queensway Bay waterfront development. The exchange, which would trade building restrictions on Queensway Bay for restrictions on another property, are considered critical to the delayed retail project's future. On Aug. 28, Taboada said he "sought and obtained council authorization" at a closed-door session on July 10 to negotiate the land-use exchange with the State Lands Commission. On Thursday, however, Taboada and City Attorney Bob Shannon said the land-use exchange was introduced to the council instead at a June 5 closed-door meeting. The issue also came up at a closed-door session on July 10, but only in passing, Shannon said. Taboada said that a closer look at his talking points for the June 5 meeting revealed that the bulk of the discussion took place that day. "Time has a way of getting compressed when you operate on a schedule like I do," he said of the date discrepancy. In addition, Taboada and Shannon said the city manager did not receive authorization from the council to negotiate the land-use swap at the meeting. On both the June 5 and July 10 closed-door meeting agendas, the Queensway Bay item was listed as a matter of "anticipated litigation." Shannon said Thursday that the litigation threat was from the State Lands Commission, which threatened to sue over the use of movie theaters on tidelands property as proposed in the development. An environmental activist threatened litigation on the issue as well. The land-use exchange, Shannon said, was discussed in closed session as a way to reduce the litigation threat, Shannon said. The city manager, he said, did not seek or require authorization from the council to proceed with the swap. "In a real sense, he was advising the council that this is what he wanted to do," Shannon said. Residents Bry Myown and Traci Wilson-Kleekamp filed a complaint with the city attorney last week alleging that the city violated the Brown Act in the way it listed the closed-door session. The pair questioned why the land-use swap information was not made public immediately after the meeting. In addition, they said the proposed exchange should have been listed as a matter of real estate negotiations, not anticipated litigation. Myown said Thursday that the city's clarification does not affect either of those issues. "My immediate reaction would be that still does not solve the problem," she said. Meanwhile, the council will be asked Tuesday to make a formal vote on the land-use exchange issue. Public comment will be taken at the meeting. The State Lands Commission will be asked to approve the exchange at a meeting in Sacramento on Sept. 17.