El Toro Planning Deal Appears Near Collapse : Base reuse: Supervisor says that differences between north, south cities are too great to allow a consensus.

Only a week after being unveiled by county officials, the tentative agreement over planning for the El Toro Marine base appeared to collapse Tuesday as two county supervisors withdrew their support and more than a dozen cities organized to fight the plan.

Harriett M. Wieder, the Board of Supervisors’ chairwoman, and Supervisor William G. Steiner said Tuesday that they are opposed to the fragile agreement reached between South County cities and Supervisors Thomas F. Riley and Gaddi H. Vasquez.

The fifth supervisor, Roger R. Stanton, could not be reached for comment. But the mayors of every city in his district have signed letters effectively opposing the agreement.

So deep is the chasm of differences between county cities in the north and south seeking control of El Toro’s future, Steiner concluded, that “it is totally unrealistic to think they can ever come up with a consensus.”

Meanwhile, the mayors of the county’s two largest cities--Anaheim and Santa Ana--expressed their “great concern” over the proposed planning agency and called for an “El Toro Summit” that would seek alternative ways to give North County cities a greater voice in the base conversion planning.

“An issue of El Toro’s magnitude, and the potential economic rewards a proper reuse plan will elicit, deserves full regional participation,” according to a letter, signed by Anaheim Mayor Tom Daly and Santa Ana Mayor Daniel H. Young, inviting the mayors of other North County cities to the Friday summit.

“The structure now being considered by the Board of Supervisors effectively forecloses on our opportunity to participate in the reuse planning of El Toro,” the letter stated.

Anaheim’s leadership of a rival alliance of cities--coupled with the previously stated opposition of Newport Beach Mayor Clarence J. Turner--could be a major setback for the Vasquez-Riley plan, since they had been invited to join the agency’s governing board, which is heavily weighted with South County representation, to give it some regional balance.

Both cities would also represent the only two voices on the board supporting conversion of the 4,700-acre base into a commercial regional airport. Officials from both cities have criticized the proposed agency, because the fate of any redevelopment plan would be left to a board of governors effectively controlled by airport opponents.

But Irvine Mayor Michael Ward, a member of the South County delegation that negotiated the fledgling alliance with county officials, minimized the threats by Anaheim and Newport Beach to go their own way.

“The Department of Defense has already stated that the people that have to be players (are) the county, Irvine and Lake Forest,” Ward said. “If (Anaheim and Newport Beach) don’t join, I don’t think that will kill the plan,” since others would be invited to take their place. Still, Ward is not ignoring the opposition. He attended the Newport Beach City Council meeting Monday evening seeking support for the Vasquez-Riley plan. But the council voted only to “continue monitoring the various options.”

“We are willing to take a look at the (Vasquez-Riley) plan, but we are not going to commit to it,” Turner responded.

Under the plan, the county and Irvine would get four votes each, Lake Forest would get three, and the remaining 6 cities on the governing board--Newport Beach, Anaheim, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Hills, Tustin and Mission Viejo--would get one vote apiece. Decisions could only be taken by a two-thirds vote.

Proponents of the plan have argued that it gives representation to the entire county, since all 31 Orange County cities would be invited to sit on an advisory panel that would pick the top three redevelopment plans to be considered by the board of directors.

Marilyn Brewer, an aide to Riley, said the supervisor continued to hope that critics of the plan would hold their fire until details of the plan are committed to paper.

“His intent is to press ahead,” Brewer added.

However, Steiner saw little hope that the current plan would receive the support of the three supervisors who were not involved in the negotiations, and who have heard discouraging words from their constituents.

Steiner said cities in his district, including Anaheim, have indicated the plan is “clearly unacceptable.”

Given the growing split in the county over El Toro, Steiner suggested a simpler solution: that the final redevelopment plan be chosen by the five county supervisors, Irvine and Lake Forest, the two cities closest to the base.

Wieder, however, said the Orange County division of the League of California Cities should become the cities’ representatives in the El Toro discussions.

She conceded that she may have been “remiss in keeping (the El Toro issue) at arm’s length,” while Riley and Vasquez negotiated with South County cities.

“The business community has been calling me. . . . They are really upset,” she said. “I think everybody is realizing ‘Hey, everybody should be involved.’ ”

Wieder said she is opposed to the plan because it involves “an abdication” of the county’s land-use authority, which would be shared with eight cities under the Vasquez-Riley plan.

Most of the North County cities invited to the summit Friday are cities that have already sent letters to the supervisors objecting to the plan.

In addition to Anaheim and Santa Ana, cities that signed the letters include Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Los Alamitos, Orange, Newport Beach, Stanton, Villa Park and Westminster. Other cities invited to the meeting are Brea, Buena Park and Yorba Linda.

Correspondents Bert Eljera and Bob Elston contributed to this story.