Free Republic

Gov. Jerry Brown pulled the plug last month on selling 11 state office properties to raise $1.2 billion in cash, but the investor group in line to buy the buildings has fired back this week with a lawsuit asking for the deal to proceed. California First LP announced today that it filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court asserting that the state failed to meet its contractual obligations when Brown halted the building sale. The group said that California, under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, had committed to sell the buildings and was required to follow through. It is asking for...

According to state records, one of the investors in California’s $2.3 billion sale of 11 state office buildings is a Newport Beach company founded and run, until 2008, by Hadi Makarechian, a contributor of more than $314,000 to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger since 2003 and nearly $175,000 to ballot measures backed by the GOP governor. Makarechian, 62, a long-time real estate developer and investor, was appointed by the GOP governor as a University of California regent in 2008. ... Makarechian was traveling and unavailable, his office said. Kern said Makarechian was still an owner and officer of the company. In his...

As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger prepares to decamp from Sacramento on Jan. 3, he has displayed zealous determination to complete what critics say will be among the worst deals the state has ever made: the sale of 11 premier state office complexes to a group of politically connected private investors. ...California would pocket about $1.3 billion after debt is paid off, but would then be a tenant in the same buildings. According to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, the deal would cost taxpayers $6 billion over 35 years. ....Two prominent Bay Area lawyers sued to halt the sale, and the state...

Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger's bipartisan transition team includes some of the state's most-dynamic, civic-minded people, as well as a wealth of experience -- a promising start for the "people's governor" and his war against "politics as usual." Team Arnold has reached beyond traditional -- and polarizing -- ideological divisions to bring in those representing the left, the right and the center. He tapped business people and community activists, professors and policy analysts, former and current mayors -- including Los Angeles' own Mayor James Hahn and former Mayor Richard Riordan -- political friends and onetime rivals. This is exactly the kind of...