Riley Tells Pentagon County Is Best Suited to Plan El Toro’s Future

In what has become a letter-writing duel to control the future of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, Supervisor Thomas F. Riley told the Department of Defense that the county is best qualified to manage the project.

The letter, made public Thursday, attempts to establish the county’s position as the lead planning agency for El Toro, almost two weeks after six South Orange County cities advised federal officials that they opposed the county’s plan and would create their own El Toro agency.

But neither letter may carry much political weight with the Defense Department’s Office of Economic Adjustment, which restated Thursday that it would hold back millions of dollars in federal planning grants until Orange County can agree on an agency to plan the post-military use of El Toro.

“We are not in the business of fomenting unrest, chaos and competition,” said Ken Matzkin, senior manager with the Office of Economic Adjustment, during a meeting at Anaheim Stadium with the League of California Cities Orange County Division.

“It’s not Irvine’s plan versus Newport Beach’s plan versus Orange County’s plan versus the state of California,” Matzkin said. “We will support one--we hope cooperative--plan.”

In a later interview, Matzkin said the recent letters would not influence his office.

“We are not throwing money at a moving target. We don’t stuff $100 bills in bags and leave them and say, ‘Whoever can find it gets the plan,’ ” Matzkin said.

In the dispute over one of the most significant land-use decisions affecting Orange County, the Board of Supervisors last month approved the creation of a three-tiered planning organization that gives the county the final authority in selecting an El Toro redevelopment plan.

Angered that they were not given a share of the decision-making authority, South County cities are forming a competing agency that would include all 31 Orange County cities and the county government, if it chooses to join them.

In an apparent attempt to diminish the ongoing rift, Riley said in his letter that the county intends “to establish a shared decision-making process” once the base conversion plan is ready to be carried out. He added: “It appears these cities may have rushed themselves into rejecting the process before it has been fully and openly discussed and formulated.”

Riley also said that, despite the South County cities’ written refusal to work with the county, “we have had numerous discussions with a representative from the South County cities” in recent days.

But several members of the six-city coalition denied that anyone had been secretly negotiating with the county.

“I have no clue who they would be talking to,” Irvine Councilman Barry J. Hammond said. Mission Viejo Councilwoman Susan Withrow added: “It’s either an outright lie or, if it’s true, it was not with the knowledge of the rest of us.”

South County officials also contend that the county’s letter misrepresents the facts. It was the county, not the cities, they claimed, that ended negotiations when supervisors formally created the advisory panel.

“Excuse me, but are we rewriting history?” Lake Forest Councilwoman Marcia Rudolph said.

But Riley’s aide, Kenneth Bruner, said the county still hopes to assuage some of the opposition when the task force meets Sept. 21--a meeting that is expected to be boycotted by South County officials.

“I still have high optimism that we will all come together,” Bruner said.