Proposed Loan to Marina Raises New Questions

Orange County government’s proposed loan of $3.4 million to the operator of a county-owned marina at Huntington Harbour marks the first time that such an arrangement has been offered, a county official said Tuesday.

The loan is one aspect of a pending lease renewal that top county executives say would significantly boost the county’s share of income generated by slip rentals and other activities at Sunset Marina Park.

The unprecedented nature of the proposed loan to marina operator Goldrich & Kest Inc. was confirmed Tuesday by Robert Hamilton, manager of program planning for the county’s Harbors, Beaches and Parks Department. Hamilton said that, although the money would be loaned at a market rate of interest, the county has never before made a such a loan on a harbor lease.

Hamilton said his understanding is that Goldrich & Kest would use the $3.4 million to expand boat slips and would not spend its own money for improvements. Jona Goldrich, president of Goldrich & Kest, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Complete details of the county’s proposed lease renewal with the marina operator have not yet been made public, and the arrangement must still be approved by the Board of Supervisors.

Yet the county’s willingness to make the $3.4-million loan--first revealed by county officials at a meeting with slip holders on Monday--has fueled resentment from those who want management of Sunset Marina to be decided through competitive bidding. The session was convened by Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder, whose district encompasses the marina.

“I’d like your deal” of a $3.4-million loan, with no cash collateral, said Dick Dorsey, a steering committee member of the Sunset Aquatic Marina Boat Owners’ Assn. who attended the meeting. “Why not put it up for public bid, if you’re going to do that (loan)?”

The county’s willingness to extend the loan was also criticized by Edward N. Bynon, president of the boat owners group, whose members are angry about Goldrich & Kest’s proposal to immediately increase monthly slip rental fees.

“They (county officials) have such a surplus, and then they’re going to lend it to somebody and then they (Goldrich & Kest) want to raise our rates. Now that makes a lot of sense,” Bynon said.

For her part, Wieder told the handful of boat owners on hand that she knew nothing of the proposed loan until it was described at the meeting, and that it struck her as a “sweetheart deal.”

Wieder’s earlier actions affecting Sunset Marina, however, were already under fire from boating and recreational vehicle activists. Those activists said they were displeased to learn that Wieder had directed a shuffling of the county’s negotiators for the renewal of the Sunset Marina lease and that her son had lobbied county officials in 1989 and 1990 on behalf of Goldrich & Kest.

The roles of Supervisor Wieder and her son, Lee E. Wieder, were reported on Sunday by The Times. The supervisor has said that she has tried only to get the best deal for the county while ensuring fair treatment of Goldrich & Kest. Neither the firm’s employment of her son nor its $1,800 in donations to her campaigns, she has said, have influenced her.

John W. Sibley, chief deputy director of the County Environmental Management Agency, defended the the proposed loan to Goldrich & Kest, saying that it would “make money” for the county. Sibley declined to divulge the interest rate that Goldrich & Kest would be charged.

Hamilton and Sibley said the loan money would come from the county’s $44.2-million Harbors, Beaches and Parks capital fund. Money from that fund, they said, may not be used for purposes other than upgrading county recreational sites.

“It is not a subsidy,” Sibley said of the loan. “They (Goldrich & Kest) can go borrow the money from the banks if they think they can get it cheaper than they can from us.”

Hamilton said that the county’s willingness to extend the $3.4-million loan emerged in lease talks at some point during the past few months. Making the loan was not an offer originally made by county negotiators, he said.

The loan to the operator of Sunset Marina would be in addition to the county’s expenditure of $5 million for other improvements at Sunset Marina Park, including more picnic tables and the building of a marine nature display.