Public Barred From Meeting on El Toro Base Future Use

County officials will bar the public and news media from a sensitive meeting today with South County city leaders as they attempt to win support for a proposed coalition that would plan the future use of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

Kenneth Bruner, an aide to Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, said Tuesday the meeting is intended as a negotiating session and officials would “tend to posture and not come to the session to do business” if the meeting were open to the media.

Riley has been nominated as chairman of the proposed El Toro Advisory Council, which would make recommendations to the Board of Supervisors.

“It’s a little like a proposal of marriage,” Bruner said. “When you are working it out, it can get a little nitty-gritty and you’d rather it be worked out alone.”

When issuing invitations to the cities, county officials said they invited only two elected city council members and an administrator from each city to avoid conflicts with state open meeting laws, Bruner said. Those laws prohibit a majority of any governing body from meeting in private.

“This is an information sharing session where we will be crafting bylaws for an advisory council,” Bruner said. “It’s been our experience that people work quicker when they know they don’t have to worry about having to read about what was said the next day.”

Today’s 3 p.m. gathering at the Hall of Administration was scheduled after a group of vocal South County cities forced a postponement of key decisions on the leadership structure of the county panel intended to oversee the conversion of El Toro. The base is scheduled to close in four to six years.

The protesters, represented by the cities of Irvine, Laguna Hills, Lake Forest, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Beach and Mission Viejo, have said the process was being rushed and that the county was unwavering in its demand to maintain final authority over the 4,700-acre base.

Invited council members from two south Orange County cities said the meeting was called by the county and they were not involved in its planning.

“I would have assumed that the press would have certainly been apprised of this meeting because the press was present at the Board of Supervisors meeting when we asked for more time to be able to meet,” Laguna Hills Councilwoman Melody Carruth said.

Lake Forest Councilwoman Marcia Rudolph said she would not mind if the meeting were open to the public. “It wouldn’t (make a difference) to what I have to say,” she said.