IRVINE : Initiative Foe Cites Irvine Co. Mailing

An opponent of an Irvine initiative aimed at widening two pedestrian overpasses for auto and truck traffic has filed a complaint that the Irvine Co. failed to properly report the costs of a newsletter mailed to thousands of residents that includes a statement favoring the expanded overpasses.

Roger Wilner, an Irvine attorney, said expenditures by the company to produce the newsletter should have been listed in campaign finance statements filed on Thursday by the Yale Action Committee, which supports widening the overpasses. The group listed only one major contribution, $1,000 from the Issues Mobilization Political Action Committee, a Los Angeles-based lobbying group. Another $1,581 in unspecified contributions of less than $100 was also shown on the statements.

But there is no mention of an Irvine Co. newsletter called “Planning Ahead,” which mentions the company’s support for expanding the bridges while discussing other aspects of the city’s road system.

“I think that if they try to make this out to be just information . . . it’s an abuse of the system. So I thought I’d call them on it,” said Wilner, who filed a complaint against the company with the state Fair Political Practices Commission.

Wilner, who mailed the complaint to the commission Saturday, said he has friends who are members of Friends of Caution for Neighborhood Preservation, a group opposed to widening the bridges. But Wilner said he is not presently a member of that group.

Leaders of the group said they have not received any contributions or spent any money to defeat efforts to widen the overpasses.

Two controversial initiatives pertaining to the overcrossings appear on the city’s June 5 ballot. One, backed by CAUTION, calls for leaving the bridges restricted to pedestrians and emergency vehicles.

The other would result in the expansion of the overpasses over the San Diego Freeway and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad tracks in central Irvine.

Irvine Co. officials defended the newsletter, saying it does not mention either ballot measure specifically.

“Yale is almost a passing reference in that entire mailer,” said Larry Thomas, the Irvine Co.’s vice president for corporate communications.

Thomas said that the company’s attorneys were consulted and advised that no campaign laws were broken by the mailer. But he added that the company would cooperate with any FPPC inquiry or ruling.