Officials Cancel Meeting on Ballpark

A joint meeting of the City Council and the Planning Commission over the future of a $6.5-million ballpark for the Mission Viejo Vigilantes has been canceled by city officials.

Instead of the May 12 joint session, the Planning Commission will meet by itself May 27 to discuss an environmental report and site plan for the facility proposed at Saddleback College.

The commission will have the last word on the ball field design unless an appeal is filed. The site plan would then get a final review from the City Council.

The joint meeting was set up by the city staff, but council members scuttled the idea.

“We do not want anyone to take the wrong impression that the normal process is being circumvented,” Mayor William S. Craycraft said.

The council and Planning Commission had drawn heavy criticism last year over a joint meeting that rezoned open space near Los Altos and Crown Valley Parkway to allow construction of a 380-unit apartment complex.

“After that last joint session, I said that I would never again participate in one of those kind of meetings,” council member Sherri M. Butterfield said, “not because people were mad, but because I was uncomfortable with the process.”

The city has yet to decide how it will finance a baseball stadium, and the college’s board of trustees must still give approval for the ballpark. College officials have said they will study the issue for several weeks, if not months.