International Gathering Too Local? : Some Call Developer’s Pacific Rim Parley Self-Promoting

It was one of those glitzy affairs at Laguna Niguel’s Ritz-Carlton hotel.

Beneath crystal chandeliers in one of the hotel ballrooms, 250 business executives, journalists and political leaders--secretary-generals, deputy prime ministers, ambassadors, and opposition party leaders from China, Malaysia and 12 other nations--gathered Thursday night for dinner and speeches on the need for free trade between Asia and the West.

This was opening night for a conference that bore the lofty title, “Transitions in the Pacific Rim--Leadership for the Next 20 Years.”

But if the emphasis was international understanding, David Stein--the 37-year-old developer, millionaire and Democratic activist who hosted the gathering--put a distinctly local stamp on it, too.

In a welcoming speech to his guests, he not only described Orange County but gave them a detailed description of his Monarch Beach real estate development, the future “crown jewel of California’s coastline,” he said proudly.

Development Outlined

Besides the Ritz-Carlton, the 500-acre development ultimately will include two more hotels, 2,650 homes, a business center, a beauty spa, a golf course, two racquetball courts and “a state-of-the-art international conference center,” he declared.

Also, he promised, his newly formed Monarch Beach Institute--a key organizer of this $250,000 conference along with Colorado Sen. Gary Hart’s “think tank,” the Center for a New Democracy--would be sponsoring more forums like this one.

Stein’s remarks about his own real estate continued to fuel local Democrats’ concerns that the developer wasn’t just holding this “nonpartisan” forum as a gesture of good citizenship but was also using it to promote himself and his business and political agenda.

All week, other county Democratic leaders--some calling Stein a party maverick--had said they were skeptical about the purpose of this conference and Stein’s institute.

In addition, they claimed, this conference and others that the Hart center has held have helped keep the spotlight on Hart as a possible presidential candidate in 1988.

One Orange County Democratic Party official said: “The Pacific Rim Conference is a way to help Hart and a way to help Stein.

“It’s a way to help his financial thing down there (in Laguna Niguel) and have people from foreign countries and Congress say, ‘If you want to talk to someone whose got something going, talk to Stein.’ ” At the same time, the official praised Stein’s “forward-looking” concept of a conference involving Pacific Rim nations. Added another local Democratic Party official: “A ‘Pacific Rim Conference,’--Hey, that’s good stuff: the committee to get David Stein appointed to a Cabinet position for the Democrats.”

Found It Interesting

Also, Richard J. O’Neill, the longtime Orange County Democrat who has provided financial backing to Democratic candidates for decades, said he had enjoyed the first night of the conference but was not surprised to find Stein promoting himself.

“Everything he does is (to) promote himself and his little business,” O’Neill said, adding, however, that he saw nothing wrong with self-promotion.

But late Friday, Stein called concerns about the motives for the conference “naive.”

An overall goal of his recently formed institute is “to promote Monarch Beach and bring worldwide attention to this area of the county,” to improve the intellectual ambiance of the Laguna Niguel area, Stein said.

“I don’t want to be a phony and say the attention is not going to be a benefit to what we’re going to create here. But the real goal is not a personal or political goal,” he said.

He added: “I am not seeking any Cabinet position” with Hart or any other Democratic presidential candidate.

Groups Under Scrutiny

In the last six months, Common Cause and several other campaign-spending watchdogs have also raised questions about whether a nonprofit think tank was actually a partisan political group. Among those research groups under scrutiny: Sen. Hart’s center, Rep. Jack Kemp’s Fund for an American Renaissance and TV evangelist Pat Robertson’s Freedom Council.

Although they may be nonpartisan, according to the Internal Revenue Service Code, they can still give political candidates a vehicle for assembling intellectual resources, some critics contend. An October editorial in the Washington Post suggested that they were a way to make “kind of an end run around (campaign) spending limits.”

Stein, however, said there is nothing wrong with trying to plot a course for the future, even if it is the future according to Sen. Hart. “I’m trying to promote some of the ideals that Gary has, ideas that very much look toward the future . . . into future emerging leaders,” he said.

Stein said he had “tried very hard” to make this conference a bipartisan effort. Though some Republicans attended, others like Gov. George Deukmejian had schedule conflicts. Also, he said, Sen. Pete Wilson had promised to come but at the last minute had been tied up in Washington.

Would Enlarge Organization

In the next six months, Stein said, he hoped his institute would become better organized and would add a full-time director and a board of directors. Currently, its only members are Stein, his partner Barry Brief and Stein aide Christopher Townsend.

The fledgling institute hopes to sponsor one conference in 1986 and two in 1987, Stein said. In addition, he said, the institute may provide funds to support a “top professor” at UC Irvine or UCLA in a field of study that would be relevant to Orange County.

Stein said this week’s conference was a benefit to the Monarch Bay area. Still, attendance at the seminars was by invitation only and corporations’ wanting to send an observer paid $5,000 each, Townsend said.

The Ritz-Carlton, with its marble hallways, rich carpeting and concierges around every corner, intimidated at least one of the conference’s celebrity guests.

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley was a keynote speaker Thursday night. On Friday, he said he had decided not to stay at the hotel. It was too expensive, he joked, “so I spent the night over at the Marriott.”