Marine Institute Privatization Might Go to Public Vote

The City Council today will consider a request to let voters decide in November whether the Orange County Marine Institute should be taken private.

The council has tried to settle the issue several times but has deadlocked. The panel was to have decided the matter at its July 9 meeting, but members Judy Curreri and Harold R. Kaufman were absent, and Mayor Karen Lloreda abstained because her husband did carpentry work for the facility.

The remaining two members did not constitute a quorum.

Councilman William L. Ossenmacher, who favors privatizing the educational facility, proposed that the issue be placed on the November ballot because the council has not been able to agree.

“Why not give the residents of Dana Point the opportunity to say how they feel on the issue?” he asked.

Founded in 1977, the institute began as a joint powers authority governed by Dana Point; the Saddleback, Rancho Santiago, Coast and North Orange County community college districts; the Orange County Department of Education; and the Orange County government.

To go private, the institute needs permission from all seven entities. It has won approval from all but Dana Point.

Chairman Mel Chambers of Friends of the Marine Institute, the nonprofit fund-raising arm of the institute, said the facility wants to convert to a private agency so that it can more easily raise money for an expansion.

Privatizing, Chambers said, would allow the institute to accept large donations from sources that are not allowed to contribute to public agencies.

“With privatization, it becomes a powerful institute teaching kids science,” Chambers said. “The Friends are eager . . . to build a Maritime Center. But without the vote, we can’t go forward.”