ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Don’t Expect Miracles

Orange County’s own planning consultant has warned that more of a buffer is needed to protect deer and other wildlife at a massive housing development planned near a creek-bed canyon east of Mission Viejo. Orange County planning has been under a microscope in recent months for everything from heavy-handed politicking to shoddy planning. Now here’s a live issueand an Environmental Management Agency report to be considered today by the Orange County Planning Commission--that is bound to offer an up-to-the minute barometer on what the commission has learned recently about its responsibilities to guard the public interest.

Will it take the report on Santa Margarita Co.’s Las Flores project seriously? Don’t expect miracles.

At a hearing last month, Commissioner Roger D. Slates, who in the spring saw nothing wrong with riding a limousine to a fund-raiser for a developer-candidate and pressing some flesh, offered a shocking display of impatience with critics. His remark: “I just don’t think deer and an urban development mix. Why don’t we plant some apple orchards and put some salt licks out there and issue some hunting licenses?”

Then there was Commissioner Earl Wooden, who counseled against sweating the small stuff: “We’ll get to real precise planning down the road, and there’ll be another time to talk about so many feet.”

Then Chairman Stephen A. Nordeck asked why he should worry when what’s in the canyon isn’t entirely known. That is, when in doubt, why err on the side of protection?

Does anybody on the Board of Supervisors have the backbone to straighten these guys out?