Hedges Labels Anti-Airport Group a Front for Leftists

Supervisorial candidate John W. Hedges has charged in a letter to key county Republicans that an anti-airport group is affiliated with a liberal San Francisco foundation that supports gay rights and needle exchange programs.

But the letters, which 500 GOP leaders began receiving Tuesday, drew prompt responses from the opposition that Hedges has the facts all wrong.

Hedges, a pro-airport Newport Beach councilman, contends in his letter that anti-airport Project 99 in Irvine is really a front for the Tides Foundation, a liberal organization in the Bay Area.

He also claims that his opponent, anti-airport Supervisor Tom Wilson, has joined forces with “leftist” Larry Agran in supporting Project 99. Agran, a former Irvine mayor, is chairman of the organization.

The letter claims that Project 99 is sharing 50% of its donations from mainly South County residents with the Tides Foundation, an organization that awards grants to gay rights organizations and to groups that have supported needle exchange programs for AIDS prevention.

“What you have here are Republicans who are being filtered through Larry Agran into a leftist group,” said Hedges in an interview.

But Project 99 is under the umbrella of a separate group, called the Tides Center, which handles bookkeeping for nonprofit organizations such as Project 99, said China Brotsky, director of special projects for the Tides Center.

The center, she said, is not affiliated with the Tides Foundation.

In addition, Agran said, Project 99 pays only 9%, or nearly $20,000 annually--not 50%--to the center for bookkeeping charges. Hedges’ letter, he said, is nothing but an attempt to scare away anti-airport donors.

“What he is saying is an outright lie and, of course, I’ll expect a full apology,” he said.

Airport opponents do not seem shaken.

“It’s a bunch of baloney,” said Wayne Rayfield, chairman of the El Toro Coalition, which is an umbrella group for all the anti-airport groups. “I think it’s going to backfire and it’s going to get people angry.”