Agran Catching Flak in Battle Against Airport

It wasn’t long ago that Larry Agran was drummed out of the mayor’s office by voters fed up with his Berkeley-bred liberal politics and later ridiculed by locals for his quixotic 1992 presidential bid.

Now, after spending several years quietly working on public policy issues and a nationwide push to encourage voting in America’s inner cities, Agran is making his way back into the limelight with his latest endeavor: Project ‘99, a think tank of sorts that is poised to fight a proposed commercial airport at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

He’s become a constant presence at debates, community forums, public hearings and even local television interviews--anywhere he can get out his message against the airport.

“An airport at El Toro is a betrayal,” said Agran, a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, whose organization includes physicians, academics and a cluster of PhDs from various fields. “I feel a sense of obligation and even a moral responsibility to get into the arena.”

But instead of embracing this accomplished consensus builder and eloquent speaker with a knack for lacing facts with a touch of emotion, some airport opponents and Agran critics wonder whether his involvement is more hindrance than help.

They accuse Agran of using the airport fight as a steppingstone for a county supervisor’s seat. And they wonder if his political bent hurts the movement’s credibility. This, after all, is the man who made the fight against nuclear testing, ozone-depleting chemicals and discrimination against gays part of his Irvine City Hall agenda.

Most of all, critics claim, he is an egotistical would-be politician out to steal the thunder of groups like Taxpayers for Responsible Planning, a citizens organization that has long been at the front of the anti-airport movement.

“He’s essentially absconded with the airport issue in South County,” said Laguna Niguel Councilman Mark Goodman, who said Agran’s politics have been used to portray South County airport opponents as liberal environmentalists. “I personally think the association is especially hurtful.”

“There’s a widespread belief that Larry doesn’t do anything except that which benefits Larry,” said Sally Anne Sheridan, who seized the mayor’s seat from Agran in 1990, ending one of the bitterest political races in Orange County history. “There’s the suspicion that he is putting himself at the front of the airport debate so he can run for supervisor someday.”

However, Sheridan and others are quick to add that such speculation about the man and his motives may be oversimplifying.

Love him or hate him, the man Rolling Stone magazine named to its environmentalist Hall of Fame the same week that an article in the American Spectator, a national conservative journal, labeled him the “Evil Emperor of Irvine, California,” is said to be much more complex.

“He’s a ‘causist.’ He’s always looking for causes to champion,” Sheridan said.

Agran doesn’t disagree--and doesn’t necessarily take offense. He said he is not considering a run for supervisor but wouldn’t rule it out. “I never rule out anything. You’re talking about someone who ran for president once,” he said with a chuckle.

Agran said he does not eagerly seek out leadership positions, but he is also not willing to wait until someone else steps forward. He insists his role is not to overshadow others on the El Toro debate, but to further their collective efforts by gathering environmental, legal and planning experts.

“I always encourage people to step forward, run for office, be on city committees, form organizations, speak out, do whatever they have to do to get involved,” Agran said. “But in the end, if I take a leadership position, so be it.”

Close friends and admirers said Agran is too often dismissed by those who disagree with him politically.

“The minute some people hear ‘Larry Agran,’ they close their eyes and shut their ears,” said Tom Rogers, former chairman of the Republican Central Committee, who has forged a longtime friendship with Agran despite their differing political views.

“But many times I’ve seen him put his own interests aside when he believes it’s the right thing to do,” Rogers said.

Agran has always been an anomaly, a staunch liberal in staunchly conservative Orange County. Some said Agran could have proved a powerful force among local Democrats, but they have never been progressive enough for Agran, who in protest registered as an independent several years ago and plans to stay that way.

Instead, Agran found a home for himself, oddly enough, among Irvine conservatives who responded in 1978 when he campaigned on a platform of controlled growth and development in one of the nation’s largest master-planned communities.

Voters would return him to office three more times before Sheridan said residents finally decided they had had enough.

While in office, Agran’s controlled-growth agenda took on the likes of the Irvine Co. and slowly grew to embrace mostly popular projects such as curb-side recycling programs, demanding developers set aside affordable housing, working to provide child care and customized transportation for older residents.

He was hailed on the front page of the New York Times for creating a “crucible of municipal innovation” when Irvine became the first city in the nation to crack down on ozone-depleting chemicals.

But as some of his ideas became more unusual, and seemed to have little to do with the city, voters became more restless.

Agran and his council allies passed a gay-rights ordinance in 1989, which was promptly rejected by the local electorate.

He hosted the Nicaraguan national baseball team at the same time the United States was backing contra rebels trying to topple that Central American county’s Marxist-led government, an event that led to calling his followers “Agran-istas.”

He personally lobbied officials in Ho Chi Minh City to help reunify five Vietnamese families with relatives in Orange County and attended rallies to ban nuclear arms testing. Shortly before losing the mayor’s seat by a razor-thin margin, he campaigned door-to-door, handing out dill and cilantro.

Then came the run for the nation’s highest office in 1992. Agran knew he had no chance, but hoped to refocus the Democratic Party on issues and managed to get on the ballot in 35 states. Insisting that he be taken seriously, and not be treated like a “nut,” he demanded that he be included in a Bronx debate a week before the election--and was promptly arrested for allegedly disrupting the event.

The charges were dropped, but Agran is still pursuing a $5-million suit against New York City for allegedly violating his constitutional rights to free speech.

Agran maintains he isn’t a man who has to inject himself into controversy to seek media attention, as some have contended: “I’ve been controversial for the right reasons. Not because I’m seeking publicity, but because I’ve been willing to take a stand.”

Bill Kogerman, a co-chairman of Taxpayers for Responsible Planning, said his group is not threatened by Agran’s, and is happy to see the attention Agran is getting.

“We are clearly the dominant anti-airport organization,” he said. “I welcome every single anti-airport person in Orange County to the table.”

Others say the intellectual elite that make up Agran’s group have been especially helpful when it came to dissecting the county’s environmental impact report, which critics called a “fraud” that failed to measure an airport’s true effect on the environment.

For every person who questions Agran’s politics, some say there are many more who look to him for leadership.

“Some Irvine residents may fear this emboldened Larry Agran,” said former Laguna Hills Councilwoman Melody Carruth. “But there are thousands of other South County residents who view Agran as a rational voice against an El Toro airport.”