Residents, business owners press National City to release records as council meets in closed session on Polanco lawsuit

Residents and business owners urged the National City Council on multiple public-comment turns to release public records related to a contested development and to comply with the California Public Records Act, and the council recessed into closed session for a conference with legal counsel in Polanco v. City of National City.

The request for records and calls for transparency drew repeated remarks about procedural irregularities at the Planning Commission, questions about traffic and safety, and concern from nearby businesses that said they were not notified about the project.

Ashley Morrison, a resident of Lincoln Acres, told the council: "The public deserves answers, and we will not accept secrecy and corruption." Several other residents and business owners echoed that demand during the meeting's public-comment period.

A commenter identified in the record as Michael Aguirre argued the California Constitution and the California Public Records Act protect public access to government records and said the submitted reports show why full disclosure is necessary. "We do have a lot of records, and you'll see that we've put those records together so you know that we're reading the records and we're trying to use those records, in order to, put on, the best case," he said.

Francisco Rivera, identified in the meeting as a licensed civil engineer and licensed traffic engineer, told the council the project as presented to the Planning Commission would generate "approximately 2,000 daily increase in traffic" and described the site plan as requiring many variances. Rivera said the residential portion was underrepresented and that the commercial component "overwhelmed the site."

Several speakers said the Planning Commission found the project to be a nuisance and raised concerns about safety. Malika Polanco told the council she had spent many nights reviewing the project and said it had sought numerous approvals, describing it as "a very bad onion of a project" and noting the application included multiple discretionary requests and variances.

Ernesto Esqueda, manager of the 7-Eleven on Sweetwater Road and a member of Neighbors United, said local businesses received no notice about the proposal and urged the council not to spend taxpayer dollars defending the city if records can be released. "If there is no corruption, just release the records," he said.

Helen Chisholm, who identified herself as currently employed at the 7-Eleven and formerly a member of the Nevada State Ethics Commission, said multiple nearby businesses were not notified and that she found that "something strange is going on here."

The council then recessed into closed session. The city attorney said, "The item that we have on for closed session is a conference with legal counsel regarding existing litigation. The name of the case is Polanco versus City of National City." Council members said they would return and report out of closed session at the end of the meeting. The transcript contains no public announcement of any action or outcome from the closed session.

Why this matters: speakers said the requested records would show how the project—which several commenters said required multiple variances and discretionary approvals—advanced to the Planning Commission and then to council consideration after the commission found it to be a nuisance. Commenters raised potential public-safety impacts, traffic increases, and procedural concerns about notification of nearby residents and businesses.

The record in the meeting focused on three categories: (1) requests that the city comply with the California Public Records Act and release requested documents; (2) claims that the project advanced despite repeated deficiencies noted in staff reviews and Planning Commission concerns, including potential CEQA implications; and (3) specific local impacts, including an asserted roughly 2,000-vehicle daily traffic increase and lack of notice to nearby businesses such as the 7-Eleven on Sweetwater Road.

The meeting provided no details in the public record about the project's developer, the project's formal name, or any completed records disclosures beyond what commenters said was already released. The council's formal action in the transcript was limited to entering closed session to consult with legal counsel on the named litigation, Polanco v. City of National City; no vote or settlement was reported in the public portion of the transcript.

The council said it would report out at the end of the meeting; the transcript ends without a public disclosure of the closed-session outcome. The city did not provide, during the public portion included in this transcript, any timeline or specific commitments for additional record releases that commenters requested.