They’re Defying Authority by Maintaining It

The El Toro Reuse Planning Authority is a renegade group with absolutely no authority over the military base’s future. But don’t bother telling that to its members.

The six South County cities keeping the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority alive have budgeted or spent more than $968,000 in taxpayer money to chart other possible base uses in defiance of a proposal to put a commercial airport at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

The Pentagon refuses to recognize the group or accept any of its studies. And the group won’t gain any muscle, even if voters next month pass an antiairport initiative that could revamp the entire base reuse planning process yet again.

But city officials at Irvine, Lake Forest, Mission Viejo, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Hills and Dana Point defend the way they are currently spending their citizens’ taxes.

“This is absolutely a proper use of funds,” said Mission Viejo City Manager Dan Joseph, whose city has earmarked $110,000 to fund the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority. “The city council represents, first and foremost, the citizens. And the citizens of Mission Viejo are unquestionably opposed to the location of an airport at El Toro.”

The authority was formed after the federal government announced that the military would abandon the base by 1999, and the agency’s board originally included the Orange County Board of Supervisors and representatives from South County cities.

But the county withdrew from the agency after county voters in November 1994 narrowly endorsed Measure A, which backs the establishment of a commercial airport at the base. Measure A also makes county supervisors responsible for base reuse planning, and the supervisors are spending $2.7 million to study future base uses.

Without the participation of the supervisors, the old planning authority continues about its business, underwriting its own $600,000 study on base reuse proposals, and paying for powerful lobbyists and travel back and forth to Washington.

“We never died, we never went away,” said Laguna Niguel City Manager Tim Casey, whose city has spent $132,000 for its share of work done by the planning authority, commonly referred to as ETRPA. “ETRPA is alive and well.”

In response to requests for their financial outlays, Irvine said it has spent $273,000 on the panel; Lake Forest reported $262,000; Dana Point, $103,000; and Laguna Hills has contributed $88,000.

On Thursday, the panel will make public one of its most ambitious reports to date, a wide-ranging study on the feasibility of an airport at El Toro. The study will take into consideration noise, vehicle traffic, base contamination, even an airport’s impact on wildlife and endangered species.

The results are being kept under wraps but are expected to directly challenge a recent county study supporting the need for additional commercial aviation facilities in the county.

The soon-to-be-released study might also help sway public opinion just a month before voters go to the polls March 26 to decide Measure S, the initiative that would repeal Measure A and place restrictions on any future attempt to use the base for commercial aviation.

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While Measure S is endorsed by many South County leaders, the passage of the initiative does not put power in the hands of their planning authority. Measure S would still leave reuse decisions in the hands of the Board of Supervisors--the same body that airport opponents contend is biased toward an airport.

The old planning group’s lack of any authority causes some to question its use of public funds.

“I find it all very curious that a group would go out and spend all this money when the federal government will only accept a study from us, because we have the authority to do so,” Supervisor Don Saltarelli said.

“If I were a taxpayer in Irvine, I would be very, very concerned that my city leaders were spending tax dollars on hobbies, basically,” said Garden Grove Councilman Mark Leyes, a proponent of an airport at El Toro. “It’s mostly an exercise in egos for those politicians and there’s no practical benefit.”

But the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority might ultimately have the last laugh.

City officials in Lake Forest and Irvine have repeatedly rejected the county’s offer to join its planning process in an advisory capacity. They argue that they deserve a decision-making role on the county’s Redevelopment Authority because their cities will be most directly impacted by the base reuse plan.

Supervisor Marian Bergeson said Friday that she intends to call a public hearing in early April that she hopes will give those cities a voice in the decision-making process.

“I think it’s a good thing for them to be going about looking at alternatives and options. It’s in their best interest,” Bergeson said. “My hope will be to expand the [Redevelopment Authority] to include those cities.”

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Extracurricular spending on the El Toro debate hasn’t been limited to South County cities.

Several North County cities have dedicated city resources to the pro-El Toro airport fight in a way that is allowed under state guidelines that bar cities from spending public funds to advocate political positions.

Garden Grove, for example, lent its city attorney to help defend Measure A against legal challenges. And the city of Newport Beach recently disclosed that it had spent nearly $47,000 to challenge the way the registrar of voters validates petition signatures.

If successful, the challenge would have killed Measure S, which the Newport Beach City Council is on record as unanimously opposing.

But City Atty. Robert Burnham stressed that “this [expenditure] wasn’t about Measure S. I want to make that clear. This was about the signature process at the registrar.”

While South County cities and the county remain at loggerheads over planning El Toro’s future, there is at least one point on which they concur: The debate has resulted in too much money being spent.

“It’s terrible, it’s absolutely atrocious,” said Lake Forest City Atty. Jerry M. Patterson, who noted that his city has no choice but to protect its interests. Yet, he said, the expenditure of “all this money, it’s a shame.”

Saltarelli agreed.

“While I personally may think it’s a waste of taxpayers’ money, I recognize their right to do what they want,” Saltarelli said of South County cities funding the reuse panel. “But here the county is already spending $2.6 [million] or $2.7 million for a fair and unbiased study. . . . I’m sorry that so much of this is based on emotion and not fact.”