Irvine Mayor Leads Conference to Discuss Growth Limitation Measures

As Orange County’s slow-growth advocates move cautiously toward placing a countywide growth limitation measure before voters next year, some elected officials and news reporters have been barred from attending a growth management conference scheduled today at UC Irvine.

Sponsored by Irvine Mayor Larry Agran and the Local Government Commission, the conference was expected to draw dozens of city council members from across the county. On the agenda for discussion were “case studies” of previously successful growth limitation ballot measures, including San Clemente’s limit on new housing units approved by voters last year.

Agran said in an interview last week that attendance is “by invitation only” but claimed that any city council member from Orange County would be permitted to attend.

Councilman Rejected

Huntington Beach City Councilman John Erskine, however, complained Thursday that Agran has rejected his attempts to pay the conference registration fee and told him on Monday that he could not attend.

“Obviously Larry is out to attract a few city councilmen who already agree with him on everything,” said Erskine, executive director of the Building Industry Assn. of Orange County, a powerful development-oriented lobbying group. “I guess they want to hear themselves talk. I don’t know what they’re going to talk about since they’ve probably excluded everybody who may not agree with everything they do.”

Erskine said Agran offered to brief him after today’s conference.

According to Erskine, Agran said the meeting was limited to members of the Local Government Commission, a nonprofit, unofficial statewide group of public officials based in Sacramento. But the invitation, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, states that non-members can pay a registration fee of $75, instead of the regular $50 fee, and still attend.

Agran could not be reached Thursday after the Times interviewed Erskine, and officials from the Local Government Commission failed to return repeated telephone calls.

Unaware of Ban

Laguna Beach City Councilman Robert F. Gentry, a commission member, said he was unaware of any attendance ban targeting individuals or select groups. But he added, “Maybe we’ve learned something from the developers. We can’t get into their board rooms, so maybe they shouldn’t be in ours.”

Erskine said he may be regarded as a “spy” for developers, but he argued that the BIA is as interested as anyone in solving the county’s transportation and housing problems. “We believe in managed growth, too, but we may not agree on the methods used to achieve it,” he said.

According to Agran, the organization was formed out of the remnants of Solar Cal, a state agency set up during the administration of former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. to promote the development and use of solar energy. The Legislature ended state funding for the agency in 1983.

Reviving the Tactic

Pro-development business officials claimed Thursday that the staff of the Local Government Commission once worked for Tom Hayden, who is now an Assembly Democrat from the Santa Monica area. Efforts to scuttle Agran’s political career and his slow-growth efforts by linking him to the controversial Hayden have failed in the past, but there were indications that opponents of growth limits may seek to revive the tactic.

A member of the county Board of Supervisors who requested anonymity predicted as much Thursday, saying, “Either the slow-growth effort will fall flat, or there will be all-out warfare, with no holds barred.”

The Board of Supervisors this week finalized a plan to make the construction of new roads a condition for future growth in some areas of south Orange County.

Some slow-growth advocates, including Laguna Hills attorney Chris Keena, said the supervisors’ action may have “taken the wind” out of grass-roots efforts to write a slow-growth ballot measure.

But retired developer and rancher Tom Rogers, who two years ago co-founded the grass-roots Orange County Tomorrow organization, said he is working on ballot language with an attorney.

Growth Tied to Traffic

Rogers said such a measure may tie growth to the ability of highways to handle increased traffic without a deterioration in the level of service. He said he would discuss possible ballot language with those attending the UC Irvine conference.

An early “working” draft of key points to be included in such a ballot initiative, written by Rogers’ associates last August, used the same traffic-oriented approach and included requirements that all public service facilities “must be budgeted, funded and assured before new development approvals and permits” will be issued.

Another provision would require that “all taxes, fees, assessments, grants and tolls, whether public or private. . . , shall be dedicated to the maintenance, improvement and completion of existing” transportation facilities, instead of new freeways or roads.

But Rogers cautioned this week that such language was simply a list of ideas and may not surface as the actual ballot initiative.

Times staff writer Leslie Berkman contributed to this story.