Why should a businessman who has apparently done nothing illegal have to pay for the city's lack of diligence in not realizing sooner that Augustine was making a fat profit?
The bottom line is, he shouldn't have to.
In its zeal to reverse the deal, the council now wants to send the message that real estate speculators must not be allowed to undermine the city's attempts to offer affordable housing.
Well, that's great. The only problem is, the city won't have a real estate market at all if it makes a habit of trying to renege on deals it thinks cost it too dearly. Manipulating the real estate market is not very good business.
No, this is a sale that the city's going to have to eat, however unfortunate it is for the taxpayers who funded it.
But there's still a chance to learn something from this deal.
The city needs to look internally to see what went wrong on its part.
Augustine turned the sale around only 10 days after buying it. That's pretty quick.
Did he somehow get tipped off to affordable housing properties that the city was interested in purchasing?
Augustine is a business associate of Vic Georgino, Community Developer Director Sue Georgino's husband. They own multi-use retail property together in Ventura.
Sue Georgino disclosed this information, however, and was not involved in the transaction.
It doesn't look like Augustine did anything wrong, but if the city is truly worried about this sale, that's where they need to look, or into why officials were not alerted to what he paid for it 10 days before.
Even a casual conversation about such a property among friends is fodder for a sharp investor.
But then again, the city doesn't hide its interest in neighborhoods being scoped out for affordable housing. So maybe he's just good at what he does.
Lists of areas, such as the Verdugo-Lake area, are a matter of public record; the Verdugo Avenue property was located in that neighborhood.
Maybe Augustine is just ahead of the game and stayed tuned in to that list, beating everyone else to the punch.
It's true that speculators should not be able to use the city's interest in affordable housing to take advantage of the public's money. But the city needs to be better able to assure that this doesn't happen. A look inward here may keep that from happening. Otherwise, we fear that the city's buyers' remorse will become an all too familiar malady.
