Bolsa Chica Bill’s Defeat Laid to Budget, Rebate Fights

The state Senate rejected legislation Tuesday that would create a special, privately controlled district to govern the early stages of a proposed residential development and marina on Orange County’s environmentally sensitive Bolsa Chica wetlands.

The bill, by Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), fell two votes short of the 21 needed for passage, failing, 19-6. However, Bergeson was then given permission to bring the measure up for another vote, perhaps as early as today.

For the unexpected defeat, Bergeson blamed a dispute between Republicans and Democrats over the 1987-88 state budget and on debate over Gov. George Deukmejian’s proposal for a $700-million rebate to taxpayers. The Democrats believe the $700 million should be spent on schools and other government programs.

Bergeson said Senate Democrats had been seeking her vote to help them override the governor’s veto of their plan to spend the money Deukmejian wants to return to the taxpayers. The Republicans until Tuesday had refused to vote for the budget, seeking to use that position as leverage to persuade the Democrats to go along with the rebate.

‘Don’t Like Those Tactics’

Although Bergeson was among four Republicans who broke ranks Tuesday and voted for the budget (story in Part I, Page 3), she said her vote was not influenced by the Democrats’ maneuvering on her Bolsa Chica legislation.

“I don’t like being put into that situation,” Bergeson said. “I don’t like those tactics--where they say, ‘If you don’t do this, we’re going to kill your bill.’ ”

Bergeson, who was a member of the budget conference committee and said all along that she eventually would vote for the spending plan, said she will not abandon her support of the proposed tax rebate to win votes for her Bolsa Chica bill.

“I’m not held hostage,” she said. “We look at each bill on its own merits. My bill will be passed because of the merits of the bill eventually, whether it’s today or next week.”

Sen. Barry Keene of Benicia, the Democrats’ floor leader, said he opposed Bergeson’s bill because of its content, but he hinted that budget politics played a role in its defeat.

“The political implications are there,” said Keene, who spread the word to his colleagues to oppose Bergeson’s bill shortly before it came up for a vote on the Senate floor.

“People will have to judge for themselves.”

Other Democrats would not comment on the issue, though an aide to Senate President pro tem David Roberti (D-Los Angeles) said Tuesday’s action was “all a game.”

The proposed special district, which has been described here as “a city within the city” of Huntington Beach, would preside over the financing and construction of $230 million in public-works projects that are needed before homes can be built. The wetlands are in an unincorporated area surrounded by Huntington Beach.

Three of the district’s five directors would be chosen by the developer--Signal Landmark Co.--and the others would be a Huntington Beach City Council member and an Orange County supervisor. Four of the five members would have to agree before the district could levy fees or issue bonds to finance its roads, sewers, water lines and other public works projects.

Area Will Be Annexed

The bill, which Bergeson said is intended to guide the Bolsa Chica area until its eventual annexation by Huntington Beach, is drafted to take effect Jan. 1, unless the city and the developer have failed to agree on how the 1,600 acres will be annexed to the city.

Signal Landmark has said the legislation is the key to the company’s desire to develop the land with minimum risk that a change in the political climate could derail the project, which has been in the works for more than a decade.

The California Coastal Commission and the county Board of Supervisors have already tentatively approved the project, which could include up to 5,700 homes on about 500 acres. The company has agreed to give another 900 acres to the state to restore and maintain as wetlands. The remaining acreage would be used for a regional park and a marina, if the Army Corps of Engineers determines that a navigable harbor is feasible and if such a harbor is approved by the Coastal Commission.

“It is not my intent to reopen old wounds and past arguments surrounding Bolsa Chica, as to the question of land use,” Bergeson said during debate over her bill Tuesday. “It is my intent to provide the necessary and adequate financial structure for Bolsa Chica in order to implement the balance reached by the Coastal Commission between the development interest and the wetlands conservation interests.”

‘Dominated by Landowner’

The bill’s primary opponent was Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara), who said he agreed with the Sierra Club’s argument that the legislation did not go far enough to ensure that the wetlands will be restored to a level that will support wildlife, and then be maintained in that condition. Hart also said he believed the bill gave the developer too much power.

“What we’re doing here is establishing a special district dominated by the landowner,” Hart said. “It strikes me as a bad precedent, a bad way to go, to have a powerful economic interest that dominates a quasi-governmental agency.

“I don’t understand why we can’t operate within the existing structures of cities and counties that we have.”

Another Democrat, Sen. Milton Marks of San Francisco, complained that the bill was given unfairly favorable treatment in a Natural Resources Committee hearing when four senators voted for it and left before the Sierra Club representative was allowed to testify.

Even with that opposition, however, Bergeson said she believed she had at least the 21 votes needed to win passage of her bill and send it to the Assembly--until the budget flap intervened. Sen. Ken Maddy of Fresno, the Senate’s ranking Republican, agreed.

“I don’t think it makes much difference,” Maddy said of the Democrats’ tactics. “She’ll get the votes.”