2 Names Mentioned for Tollway Post : Meyer Resignation Brings Talk of Irvine Official, County Planner

Although the search for a new county tollway chief has not yet officially begun, at least two names of possible replacements have surfaced.

The post is open in the wake of the resignation Thursday of John Meyer, who cited “burnout,” complaints from developers and a desire to return to mass-transit planning. Meyer, who in a letter prepared for delivery to an industry newsletter has taken a parting shot at the Mission Viejo Co., is executive director of the San Joaquin Hills and Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agencies. The agencies oversee three planned tollway projects in southern and eastern Orange County.

Potential successors being discussed Friday include Irvine City Manager William Woollett and county transportation planner Lisa Mills.

Woollett said he is “very interested” in the job but has not made a decision to apply. Mills, who is director of planning and programs at the Orange County Transportation Commission, could not be reached for comment.

A six-man committee was formed to find Meyer’s successor, but it has not yet scheduled a meeting. Applications are to be submitted within 30 days and must be addressed to the clerk of the transportation corridor agencies, Meyer said Friday.

Tollway board members said that Woollett’s name came up informally because of his role on several city-county committees that are studying growth and transportation issues.

Meyer said Woollett would make a fine tollway director: “He has just the right temperament for the job.”

But Woollett also is being touted for another post--that of executive director of a proposed Orange County Assn. of Governments, a planning organization that would merge the county’s transportation and transit agencies into one body ruled by a panel of city council members and county supervisors.

“I’m even more interested in the COG (association of governments) idea,” Woollett said, “but the legislation for that isn’t final yet and I was planning not to have to make a decision until the end of July. If the corridor agencies have a 30-day deadline, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Mark Goodman, an aide to Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, said that some tollway board members may reconsider their previous opposition to joining the new combined transportation-transit agency, in part because the tollway effort is understaffed.

But San Juan Capistrano Mayor Gary L. Hausdorfer, chairman of the Foothill/Eastern tollway board, said he remains strongly committed to keeping the tollway projects separate, at least until bonds are sold to help finance them and they are actually built.

Mills’ name surfaced because she was instrumental in securing a commitment from the state for $35 million in tollway financing last year. Transportation Commission officials said they have urged Mills to consider applying for the tollway job but added that they did not know what her plans are.

Caltrans official Carolyn Ewing was also rumored to be considering an application, but she, too, was unavailable for comment. Ewing is a former Yorba Linda councilwoman who once served as an aide to Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder.

Former County Supervisor Bruce Nestande, a member of the California Transportation Commission and a founding member of the tollway agencies, took his name out of consideration.

“Under no circumstances would I take that job,” said Nestande, who has been critical of the agencies’ performance thus far. “They need a very strong manager, someone who can get roads built.”

Meyer, who has cited criticism from the Mission Viejo Co., among other developers, as a partial reason for his resignation, lashed out at the firm in comments contained in a draft letter to an industry newsletter.

The newsletter recently quoted a Mission Viejo Co. vice president who blamed the tollway agencies for delays in building the San Joaquin Hills tollway.

In his draft letter, Meyer cited the need for completion of tollway environmental impact reports. The Mission Viejo Co. has suggested that the reports are unnecessary, at least for a four-mile stretch of road that the company wants to build now. This two-lane road eventually would become part of the tollway between El Toro and La Paz roads in the new planned community of Aliso Viejo.

Meyer’s draft letter recalls that the Mission Viejo Co. engaged in “premature grading” that it was forced to stop in the tollway area.

“The Mission Viejo Co.’s error nearly resulted in a loss of federal funds for the San Juaquin Hills Transportation Corridor,” Meyer wrote. “This kind of foolhardy, precipitous activity is an example of Mission Viejo Co.’s lack of judgment in this matter. In fact, this risky behavior endangered the entire project.”

Meyer also criticizes the Mission Viejo Co.’s claims, made in public statements and full-page newspaper ads, that it is going to build four miles of the San Joaquin Hills tollway at a cost of $50 million.

No financing agreement exists for that construction.