UPDATED: Wedding Business Folds, Permit Hearing Canceled

The troubled wedding business at the has closed.

Owner Arpi Evans informed the city of the shutdown in a letter dated Oct. 31. She also dropped her appeal of a decision by the .

"Effective immediately, there is no longer an events business located at 27182 Ortega Highway at the Historic Forster Mansion," she wrote.

Evans is in the midst of personal bankruptcy, as well as litigation with the owners of the Forster Mansion property, who she has sued for fraud.

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The City Council was scheduled to consider her appeal of the permit decision during its Tuesday night meeting. In filing an appeal and thus awaiting a determination from the City Council,

She had previously cited concerns that couples already under contract for weddings months out might sue if she canceled their events.

The matter was the only public hearing on the night's agenda; in its absence, the meeting is bound to be quite brief.

What's left is a request from City Manager Karen Brust to extend a contract with Project Partners Inc. to continue filling the position of "chief operator" of the groundwater recovery plant to the tune of $118,026 through June 2012.

The is looking to fill the position with a permanent employee, but in the meantime, Brust wants the council to use $99,747 set aside for the chief operator position, as well as $69,460 available because of another vacant utilities position.

Additionally, there's an item to consider spending $36,525 on landscape consultant costs associated with retrofitting the . In total, city staffers expect to spend $524,559 on the project.

A majority of the costs will be reimbursed under a Proposition 84 grant, but the city might end up paying $26,125 unless construction costs turn out to be less than estimated, San Juan Capistrano's Development Director Grant Taylor wrote in a report to the council.

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On a lighter note, the council will continue its discussion of ways to increase holiday shopping in San Juan Capistrano.

To view the night's agenda in its entirety, visit the city's website.

The meeting begins at 6 p.m. in City Hall, 32400 Paseo Adelanto.

More information about the Forster Mansion will be posted as it becomes available.