El Toro Deal Taking Flak From All Directions : Base conversion: With details of who will preside over redevelopment still not down on paper, grumbling from officials not in on fragile alliance gets louder.

With details of the leadership agreement on the redevelopment of El Toro Marine Corps Air Station yet to be committed to paper, the fragile alliance forged between county officials and South County cities is being assailed from a number of directions.

The strongest voices of discontent include key county and municipal government leaders who believe a tentative agreement announced earlier this week reflects very narrow interests to the exclusion of North and West County cities.

Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Harriett M. Wieder said Wednesday that she has yet to be briefed on the intricacies of the plan even though fellow Supervisors Gaddi H. Vasquez and Thomas F. Riley helped seal the pact during secret negotiations that ended last week.

“This is bad handling of public policy,” Wieder said, adding that many involved in the negotiations have been ordered not to discuss the plan’s details, not even with fellow public officials. “This is like playing a child’s game. We have professional people saying that they are not allowed to talk to each other.”

As proposed, Wieder said, the agreement represents only a “skeleton of a plan.” She said she was angered when she learned in newspaper accounts that significant authority on the governing board had been ceded by the county to a coalition of South County cities.

South County cities “think everything is greased. It’s not,” Wieder said. “To have new public policy presented with so few details is fraught with problems. I’m concerned.”

Wieder and two other supervisors who were not part of the negotiations are expected to be pressured by city officials outside South County and interest groups that support conversion of the 4,700-acre base into a commercial airport. The pro-airport groups fear the tentative agreement reached between Riley and Vasquez and the South County cities places the final decision on a base redevelopment plan in the hands of airport opponents.

However, Riley and South County leaders are urging critics to withhold judgment until they see the plan, which is expected to be ready for review in about two weeks, officials said.

“My position is: ‘What’s going to be in the best interest of the county?’ ” Riley said. “I want to assume that everyone else is working in that direction.”

The most important point about the plan, Riley added, is that “everyone is going to have a say” in how the base is converted to civilian use.

Under the tentative agreement announced Monday, the county and eight cities would form an intergovernmental agency board. The county and the city of Irvine would get four votes each, Lake Forest would get three, and the remaining cities--Anaheim, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Hills, Newport Beach, Tustin and Mission Viejo--would each get one vote.

The board would make the final decision on El Toro’s future based on three redevelopment plans prepared by a countywide group composed of city officials and business and community leaders.

Anaheim and Newport Beach are the only two pro-airport cities invited to join the intergovernmental agency.

City officials from outside South County said part of the uneasiness about the proposal stems from the fact that the agreement was reached without participation of Anaheim, Newport Beach or Tustin--which would all be part of the governing board of directors--or of other West and North County cities.

“North County cities have never said Anaheim will represent us, and Anaheim has never volunteered to represent us,” Garden Grove Councilman Mark Leyes said.

Anaheim has not officially responded to the plan, but Councilman Irv Pickler predicted that his city would not be inclined to support it because it is too heavily weighted in favor of South County.

Pickler said his city would continue pressing for participation by the full Board of Supervisors on the El Toro agency’s governing board and not limit the county’s representation to Vasquez and Riley, as now planned.

“I think (the county) is losing control,” Pickler said. “They have let a lot of responsibility go on this. I don’t think it’s something we could support.”

But Riley pointed out that his and Vasquez’s votes on the governing board would be mandated by the Board of Supervisors. Riley said the other supervisors can offer assurances to the constituents in their districts that all five supervisors will have input on the final redevelopment plan before the El Toro board takes its vote.

Newport Beach Mayor Clarence J. Turner, who has previously stated his opposition to the compromise plan negotiated by the county, said he would seek further direction from his City Council on Monday.

“We’re not going to let (the issue) rest,” Turner said. “There’s just too much at stake, frankly.”

Even Tustin, which is expected to approve the plan, apparently will do so only halfheartedly.

Councilman Jeffrey Thomas complained that Tustin’s voting power is no greater than that of Anaheim and Newport Beach, even though 26 acres of the El Toro base are inside Tustin’s city limits.

Before the tentative agreement was reached, the mayors of seven cities--Anaheim, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Santa Ana and Westminster--sent a letter to the Board of Supervisors demanding that the final redevelopment plan be approved by a panel that represents all cities.

The city of Orange also complained of being left out. “We are only six miles from the base, the same distance as Laguna Niguel, which has been given a seat on the board of directors,” Orange City Manager William F. Cornett Jr. pointed out in a letter to the supervisors.

Since Monday, Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, Los Alamitos and Stanton have expressed similar reservations to the supervisors.

Should the cities opposed to the plan unite, they would include the county’s five largest cities and represent more than half of its population. The cities are also spread across the five supervisorial districts.

Opposition to the plan is also being organized by the Committee for El Toro Airport Tomorrow, and the Airport Working Group--two pro-airport groups with ties to the local business community.

Laguna Hills Councilman Randal J. Bressette said negotiators attempted to include everyone, but believed that South County cities deserve more authority since they will be the ones most impacted by the redevelopment plan.

If the roles were reversed and the North County cities faced the threat of commercial airport noise, “how would they feel about seven South County cities telling them what they thought the (base) reuse ought to be?” Bressette said.

Riley and Thomas, the Tustin councilman, also said that even if Anaheim and Newport Beach do not join the agency, the plan would not be doomed and other cities could take their seats on the governing board.

“They can jump and scream all they want, and I don’t think they will have a darn thing to do with it in the end,” Thomas said.