Rival Groups on El Toro Plan Get Ultimatum

The Defense Department is suspending Orange County’s application for a grant to fund planning for the conversion of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, and has told South County cities that their application could face the same fate unless they stop feuding over control of the base, officials said Wednesday.

“We have that application by the county on hold,” Capt. Dave Larson of the department’s Office of Economic Adjustment told city officials attending a meeting of the Orange County Regional Airport Authority formed by three North County cities.

Larson said the county’s application is not considered “valid” at this point because it does not represent a countywide consensus.

“It is not approved, it is not disapproved. It’s in process, waiting for this consensus,” Larson added. “If we had another application from South County cities, we would say the same thing to them.”

Larson’s comments--the latest in a series of warnings by federal officials that Orange County must unite under one planning group or risk losing about $500,000 in federal aid--also were made earlier Wednesday during a private meeting with a six-city South County coalition that is considering creating an El Toro agency to compete with the county plan.

A full three months after the decision to close the base, the interests competing for planning authority for base conversion could not be in more disarray.

No local government agency--not the county of Orange, not the cities near the base, nor other cities wielding significant political clout--has been able to agree on so much as the structure of a committee that would guide future planning for the 4,700-acre site.

On one front, county officials are failing to persuade South County cities to attend an organizational meeting Tuesday of their task force, which they had hoped would take the lead in El Toro planning. Having requested that RSVPs be returned Wednesday, the county was letting that deadline slide as most of its courted guests, the South County cities, were pledging not to attend.

In South County, officials are hoping to emerge as the “consensus” group the Defense Department is seeking and plans to release this week plans for an intergovernmental agency that would include the county’s 31 cities and the county government, if it chooses to attend.

And in North County, where a three-city coalition has formed the Orange County Regional Airport Authority because it was ignored in the county’s plan, officials are now wondering whether they will ever be included.

Anxious to recruit allies for its plan, county staffers, under the direction of Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, will resume today private negotiations with South County leaders in hopes they can narrow the gulf between both sides that has widened in recent weeks.

“This issue has done more to sadden me than any other in my career,” said Riley, who will chair the county’s planning task force. “I’m taking this personally. I’ve worked very well with the South County cities, and even helped them to become cities. Why should they think that my interests in South County are contrary to theirs?

“It is not my style to give up,” Riley said, adding, “I’m still saying prayers that reasonable people will resolve this problem.”

South County leaders said privately that they would consider delaying the scheduled Friday release of their rival plan if the county agrees to share with them the final decision-making authority on the base redevelopment plan.

But Riley and other county officials continue to refuse to share that power, claiming the county has absolute land-use authority over all but 300 acres of the base.

County Administrative Officer Ernie Schneider acknowledged that defense officials informed the county that up to $300,000 in initial planning grants would not be forthcoming until a consensus among local governments was reached.

Nevertheless, Schneider said the county would continue with its plan--with or without the coalition of South County cities--even if it meant having the county pick up the initial organization costs.

“I have told the Office of Economic Adjustment that my recommendation to the Board of Supervisors will be to proceed with current plans, regardless (of not receiving federal grants). We can’t drag the South County cities to the table and we can’t just sit by and let this opportunity pass,” Schneider said.

By holding up the county’s grant application, Schneider said “the federal bureaucracy hasn’t gotten the message from President Clinton that everything should be done to make sure base conversions are done expeditiously.”

The federal hold on the county’s grant application took county supervisors by surprise, however, prompting calls for both sides to reach some agreement.

Except for their vote last month to create the county’s task force, Supervisors William G. Steiner, Roger R. Stanton and Harriett M. Wieder have had virtually no role in shaping county policy concerning El Toro. All of the initial planning strategy was developed through the offices of Riley, Gaddi H. Vasquez and the county administrative staff.

“I absolutely respect the leadership of Gen. Riley,” Steiner said, “but I would hate to see this process go down in flames.”

Steiner said the federal government’s decision to hold up the planning grant money “puts everybody’s back to the wall.”

“Somebody’s got to blink or nothing will happen,” Steiner said, “and we’ll lose the opportunity that future development of that land could bring.”

Said Stanton: “If we don’t get together, we’ve lost this thing.”

Vasquez, who is expected to be the vice chairman of the task force, has remained relatively silent on the issue since Aug. 17, when the supervisors officially ended negotiations with the cities. He was out of town Wednesday and could not be reached for comment.

In Irvine, where South County leaders and their recently hired consultants met with Larson, the council members tried to gauge whether their proposed multi-city agency would be accepted by the federal government over the county’s plan.

Larson said after the two-hour closed-door session that his answer was: “No . . . That’s not a consensus. It still needs to be a consensus process.”

He added that if one group does not emerge as the lead agency, the secretary of the Navy could ultimately pick the redevelopment plan.

“We absolutely do not want to be a mediator,” Larson said. “The cities need the county to be involved in their process and the county needs the cities to be involved in their process.”

One official who attended the Irvine meeting but asked not to be named was encouraged by Larson’s comments, interpreting them to mean that the county and South County cities “are all on a level playing field.”

Feeling that momentum was swinging in favor of South County cities, Laguna Hills Councilwoman Melody Carruth added: “I am confident the county will move closer to the center of the table.”

The South County proposal has gained political leverage over the county’s concept in recent weeks partly because North County cities expressed interest in joining them--but only if South County officials pledged to remain open-minded about the base’s future.

North County cities generally favor conversion of the base to a commercial airport, while South County cities are adamantly opposed.

But the draft of the South County proposal circulated in recent days could threaten the fragile north-south alliance. Even though the North County cities were willing to give the cities closest to the base more voting power in the new agency, there was concern that South County officials may be seeking too much authority.

Garden Grove Councilman Mark Leyes, who chairs the North County airport authority, said he had not read the south’s proposal, but said, “There will be concerns if it has any mechanism that stacks the decision-making against an airport or any other particular use.”

But one South County official concluded: “If Palestine and Israel can get together, we can come to some kind of accord with North County cities and the county.”