Portfolio Losses Aside, Forecast Is Bright

The city was the biggest municipal investor in the county’s failed investment pool, but the city manager gave an upbeat economic forecast at a Wednesday morning chamber breakfast.

“When one takes everything into account, despite the bankruptcy, 1995 was a successful year for the city,” City Manager Paul O. Brady Jr. said after the Irvine Chamber of Commerce event. “We had been successful in being able to put aside money for rainy days, and we were well-positioned to handle something as major as a bankruptcy.”

Irvine had $209 million on deposit in the ill-fated county investment pool and has yet to receive $39.2 million the county owes it. But Brady predicts that, with accrued interest, the city will eventually receive $45.3 million under the latest county recovery plan.

Other speakers at the upbeat, early-morning meeting agreed with Brady, including UC Irvine pollster Mark Baldassare and Richard Sim, group president of investment properties for the Irvine Co.

Baldassare said uncertainty over the bankruptcy is fading in Orange County.

“The bankruptcy didn’t throw us into a depression, but we did not have the kind of economic recovery we should have had last year,” Baldassare said during a telephone interview. “It’s beginning to look like the worst . . . [is] behind us.”

With the success of the new entertainment center at Irvine Spectrum and construction of four new commercial projects in the city, Sim said he expects “significant” job growth this year.

“Things look pretty darn good,” Sim said. “It’s time to get the bankruptcy behind us and move on.”