Critics See Threat to Wildlife in Developer Aid to Wilson

By PAUL JACOBS

Nov. 3, 1996 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

When Gov. Pete Wilson joined San Diego Chargers owner Alex Spanos in his sky box at the 1995 Super Bowl, it was a reunion of political allies.

Few people have contributed as much to the governor’s political fortunes as Spanos, a self-made multimillionaire developer.

He, his family and business associates have given more than $400,000 to Wilson’s political campaigns. Records show that the governor has received at least $2 million from developers since 1987.

To a number of environmentalists, Wilson has been far too friendly with these contributors. The critics argue he has weakened the state’s environmental laws--particularly the Endangered Species Act--to accommodate development.

Wilson’s top aides say the governor has balanced the protection of endangered species with the state’s economic needs and sometimes has taken environmental stances that conflict with the interests of contributors.

Encounters between bulldozer and threatened animal or plant are occurring all over the state--clashes refereed by Wilson’s Department of Fish and Game and the state Resources Agency.

For Spanos, the species in question is the Swainson’s hawk, which nests in a regional park on the edge of the 1,300-acre Spanos Park housing and commercial development in Stockton.

In Orange County, the Irvine Co., which along with its employees has donated $372,000 to Wilson campaigns, wants to develop acreage that is home to the threatened California gnatcatcher.

In Los Angeles County, the Newhall Land & Farming Co., which donated $85,000 to the governor, plans a “new town” west of Santa Clarita. The company acknowledges that the least Bell’s vireo and the unarmored three-spined stickleback will be affected.

Large contributions to an elected official raise questions about the role of money in politics. Donations open officials to criticism of their fairness and impartiality when decisions affect benefactors.

The issue is particularly important this year because Propositions 208 and 212 on Tuesday’s ballot would impose limits on campaign contributions in state and local races. The governor opposes both measures.

Debate has focused on the influence of contributions in government decisions, including the enforcement of environmental laws.

Without accusing Wilson of favoring individual contributors, the critics contend the governor has tried to weaken the endangered species law and appointed people who support development.

Said Sierra Club lobbyist Michael Paparian: “The Wilson administration’s motivation is more to protect their constituents and campaign contributors rather than endangered species.”

Wilson’s top aides bristle at the notion. Deputy Chief of Staff George Dunn said Wilson’s record establishes him as a Republican who consistently has taken on developers to protect the environment.

But, Dunn added, developers “also support him because of his overall perspective on how to make the economy grow.”

Wilson has been promoting compromises that permit development while protecting natural resources, Dunn said. “The alternative is intellectual gridlock, political gridlock,” he said. “It is no development.”

The environmentalists rattle off Wilson actions that they say attempt to undercut the Endangered Species Act:

* An administration bill, which failed last year, would have made it more difficult to add to the state’s list of protected species--and easier to remove a species already listed.

* Buttressed by a legal opinion from state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, Fish and Game officials changed their interpretation of existing state law: No longer would destruction of an endangered animal’s habitat be treated as the equivalent of killing the creature itself, as it is under federal law.

* In settling a landowner’s lawsuit, Fish and Game officials stopped collecting $3 million a year in fees from developers for reviewing the environmental effects of development projects--only to have a Superior Court judge block that decision as a violation of the state Constitution.

The governor appoints members of the state Fish and Game Commission, which draws up the endangered species list.

Critics contend Wilson has stacked the commission with pro-development appointees, including San Diego real estate broker Margie Phares. She made millions of dollars in commissions on the purchase of the 20,000-acre Otay Ranch, a proposed development encompassing gnatcatcher habitat. After serving a year, Phares left the commission last month when the state Senate failed to confirm her appointment.

The governor’s top appointees say the true measure of Wilson’s environmental policy is their record of accomplishment.

State Resources Secretary Douglas P. Wheeler--who as a young lawyer helped draft the federal Endangered Species Act--boasts of the administration’s new approach to negotiating with developers. Builders are asked to contribute to wildlife reserves in return for environmental approval of their projects.

The approach has been embraced by U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and President Clinton and has resulted in “more habitat protected than under the previous years of state and federal laws,” Wheeler said.

“If we were somehow the rapacious anti-environmentalists that those people would depict, one wonders why Bruce Babbitt would be our partner in every one of these efforts?” Wheeler asked.

In Stockton, where Alex Spanos began planning a residential development in 1987, Swainson’s hawks were identified in a nearby regional park.

An estimated 1,100 of these hawks return to California each year from their annual migration. Four of the birds nest in the park, according to the local Audubon Society.

Spanos provided $50,000 for a hawk study and agreed to pay the city $750 for every acre developed. That fee is only a fraction of the $3,000 per acre needed to acquire hawk habitat under state Fish and Game guidelines. But it is the same deal offered to other developers there.

Gerald A. Sperry, general counsel for the Spanos Cos., said the firm has been sensitive to the environment--providing open space and a large lake within the development.

And, he argued: “People continue to be born, they continue to come to California. How do you accommodate the human population and not destroy the other populations?”

He denied that Spanos’ contributions to Wilson and other Republicans have influenced the Department of Fish and Game’s efforts to protect the hawk. He said the developer only has dealt with state field staff, not the governor’s office.

The Irvine Co. and its officers have contributed at least $2.2 million to various state and federal campaign committees since 1987.

Chairman and owner Donald L. Bren served as financial chairman of Wilson’s short-lived presidential campaign committee last year.

Much of the Irvine Co.’s undeveloped land is habitat for the gnatcatcher. In 1991, the Fish and Game Commission refused to give the tiny songbird endangered status after the Wilson officials argued that a comprehensive, voluntary habitat-preservation effort underway in Orange County would offer better protection.

Two years later, over the objections of the state, Babbitt declared the bird a “threatened” species under federal law, but at the same time he endorsed the state’s attempt to assemble reserves in five Southern California counties to help save the bird and 40 other species.

This summer, Babbitt, Wheeler and Bren signed an agreement dedicating some 37,000 acres of private and public land to a reserve in central and coastal Orange County. The agreement permits the Irvine Co. and other landowners to move ahead even if they kill listed animals or destroy prime habitat.

“It is a potentially fabulous solution to a really knotty problem,” said Irvine Co. Vice President Larry Thomas.

Thomas, who worked in Wilson’s 1994 reelection campaign, said his company’s fund-raising efforts did not influence the outcome of almost five years of negotiations.

“We didn’t contribute to Bill Clinton,” he added.

The Nature Conservancy and the Endangered Habitats League praised the plan as a marked improvement over earlier piecemeal attempts at habitat preservation.

But a number of environmental groups are critical. They say that the agreement allows the Irvine Co. and other landowners to develop 7,000 acres of prime habitat, and that most of the company’s 20,000-acre contribution to the reserve already had been committed under earlier agreements.

“It’s a big bamboozle,” said Leeona Klippstein of Spirit of the Sage Council.

Newhall Land & Farming announced plans two years ago to build 25,000 homes just west of the Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park. Recently the company planned to deed 5,800 acres to a nonprofit organization for a biological reserve.

Local environmental groups, however, complain the project will threaten several endangered species.

Marlee Lauffer, spokeswoman for Newhall Land, said the company awaits approval from the county, U.S. Fish and Wildlife and state Fish and Game before it can proceed.

The company and its executives have contributed $462,000 to state and federal candidates since 1987, including $85,000 to Pete Wilson, records show.

These contributions, Lauffer said, “support people who are pro-business, pro-job growth, pro-economic development--people who are going to enhance the quality of life.”

San Diego County has more threatened and endangered species on its undeveloped lands than anywhere else in the continental U.S., according to a local conservation plan.

Developers there are almost certain to encounter problems with gnatcatchers and other threatened species.

James and Alfred Baldwin proposed building 27,000 houses on the 20,000-acre Otay Ranch south of San Diego, but their company went into bankruptcy and is being run by a federally appointed trustee. The Baldwins, their families and associates have contributed at least $71,000 to Wilson since 1987.

Pardee Construction has plans for several projects. One of them, 2,600-unit California Terraces development on Otay Mesa, would pave over the only U.S. stand of a rare wild rose.

Another, in San Diego, would affect one of the last stretches of southern maritime chaparral. The company has state and federal permission to build 952 homes on 150 acres.

The company and its executives have contributed at least $122,000 to Wilson. Michael Madigan, a Pardee vice president, was executive assistant in the 1970s to then-San Diego Mayor Pete Wilson.

Environmentalists believe that developers have clout because of their contributions to Wilson and other elected officials. Pardee spokesman Len Frank disagrees, saying: “I see politics playing a very little role. . . . The vast majority of contacts are simply with the staff, who we meet with on a day-to-day basis to resolve whatever issues are before us.”

Not all developers with endangered species problems are Wilson contributors. Some, like Angelo Tsakopoulos of Sacramento, donate to the Democratic Party. He, his family and his business associates have contributed at least $1.9 million to state and federal campaigns since 1987. He has given nothing to Wilson.

Two years ago, Tsakopoulos hosted a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser for Democratic congressional candidates at his Sacramento home. The guest of honor was President Clinton.

Tsakopoulos’ AKT Development Corp. has proposed a 5,500-unit residential development north of Sacramento that will destroy habitat of the Swainson’s hawk and the endangered giant garter snake--a 5-foot-long reptile that lives along waterways.

Eleni Tsakopoulos, project manager for AKT, said that because of the importance of state Fish and Game approval, “a landowner would be smarter supporting the Republican Party,” rather than the Democrats.

The project will need approval not only from state Fish and Game, but also from U.S. wildlife officials.

Backers of the state campaign-finance initiatives said that large contributions are a problem, no matter which party receives them.

“Companies, whether developers or not, don’t spend money unless there is a larger return to their bottom-line profit margin,” said Mary Raferty, legislative director of the California Public Interest Research Group, sponsor of Proposition 212. The initiative would bar corporate contributions and limit others to $200.

Tony Miller, director of the Yes on 208 campaign, said: “If you have a stack of phone calls . . . typically you start with the contributor who has given you the most . . . versus someone who hasn’t given you anything.” The measure would limit individual and corporate contributions to $500 in statewide races and $1,000 if the candidate agrees to spending limits.

The governor opposes both initiatives as misguided, said Wilson Deputy Chief of Staff Dunn. In a large state, he said, a political leader must raise millions of dollars to get his message out.

Many of those who write the biggest checks to the governor, Dunn said, are individuals “we are screwing as developers, but they like Pete Wilson. Go figure.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Developer Donations

Many of the state’s largest developers are major contributors to the governor and other political candidates. A number also have projects that create conflicts with the state and federal endangered species acts. Here are the amounts contributed by these developers, corporate executives, families and political action committees from 1987 through mid-1996:

*--*

Total Contributions contributions Endangered to to all or threatened Developer Pete Wilson candidates species in area Alex Spanos $411,000 $1.5 million Swainson’s hawk Irvine Company $372,000 $2.2 million California gnatcatcher Pardee Construction $122,000 $1.3 million California gnatcatcher Small-leaved rose Newhall Land & $85,000 $462,000 Least Bell’s vireo; Farming unarmored three-spined stickleback Baldwin Co. $71,000 $446,000 California gnatcatcher AKT Development $0 $1.9 million Swainson’s hawk; giant garter snake

*--*

Developer: AKT Development (Angelo Tsakopoulos)

Project: Northpoint

Location: North Sacramento

Developer: Alex Spanos

Project: Spanos Park

Location: Stockton

Developer: Newhall Land & Farming

Project: Newhall Ranch

Location: Near Santa Clarita

Developer: Irvine Co.

Project: Various projects