Big-Time Land Preservation Plan Meets a Critical Mass

Robert Martin loves to take his fifth-grade students at Las Palmas Elementary School on wildlife field trips. So he was among the standing-room-only crowd at San Clemente High School’s theater Thursday night to review government plans for carving out a huge chunk of undeveloped south Orange County as a natural preserve.

Five government visionaries--state, federal and county--sat on the stage. Just below them were posted five multicolored drawings of options for protecting more than 40,000 acres from future development. Martin asked them what, to me, was the quintessential question:

“You are the experts. Why don’t you tell us which of these five options you think is the best?”

The five dodged him with the artful skill likely learned from a lifetime of working in bureaucracy.

“You’ll have to trust the process,” said Bill Tippets of the state Department of Fish and Game. That brought gales of laughter from this skeptical crowd.

What Tippets meant was: This was just a preview--called a “scoping meeting” in governmentese. A series of public hearings will follow. Those hearings and many more planning sessions will take place before a single recommendation is eventually presented to the county Board of Supervisors.

It was the word “trust” that started them laughing. These were people who saw the process as shoving in their direction unwanted toll roads, an international airport and a deluge of new housing tracts. Trust isn’t something that comes easy to them.

I showed up because I wanted to see how many cared enough about this county’s future to skip out on the final episode of TV’s “Seinfeld.” Turns out it was more than anyone expected. The 150-seat theater was packed, with people sitting in the aisles. Even when the scoping ran for well over three hours, there were people still asking questions.

Many were devoted to environmental causes, Sierra Club or Audubon Society types. But lots of others were just residents unhappy to see south Orange County as a haven for big developers. The acreage being spared is only one-third the size of what’s left available for someone to concrete over.

Unfortunately, some people treated the panel of government staffers and consultants as if they were the enemy. As an example, one woman accused them of deception because the five option drawings include the Cleveland National Forest, which isn’t going to be developed anyway. That made the options appear bigger than they really were.

But the five men on stage were actually the good guys. They’re the ones who got into this line because they care deeply about environmental issues. And they’ve spent years, with scientific input, putting these five plans together.

Audience member Tom Waltrip of San Clemente recognized that. He asked them: “What are you five guys doing to protect us? What do you have in your bag of tricks?”

Waltrip expressed concern that developers might bribe someone to scuttle these plans. Some of the government five took offense, until Waltrip made clear he didn’t mean them; nobody would want to bribe them because they aren’t the real power brokers.

“I don’t know how to reassure you,” said Tippets of Fish and Game. “We’ll use the best biology that is out there, to the best of our ability.”

“I hope so,” Waltrip shot back, “because we are all counting on you.”

It takes quite a bit of study to see the differences in the five proposals. They vary more in configuration than in substance. Essentially, all of them preserve blocks of undeveloped land large enough to provide an adequate habitat for a number of endangered species, like the coastal California gnatcatcher. What worried many in the audience was whether developers will later influence government officials to whittle down the size of the protected area before final approval.

“Stand your ground,” Jane McVicker of San Clemente told the government five, to loud applause.

Problem is, too many unknowns mean that not all the answers are in. Many inquired about the impact of proposed toll road expansion. How would a new airport at El Toro affect things? Where’s the funding come from?

Project manager Rod Meade explained that this wildlife plan can’t wait on decisions about the airport, or toll road expansion. Public hearings on the wildlife habitat lands will likely begin in a few months, he said. And a proposal should be put to the county supervisors next year.

You can’t say the government five weren’t sensitive to the audience’s interests. They listened politely and patiently, even to the occasional zingers. I would suggest, however, that before the public hearings begin, someone coach them on unraveling the bureaucratic language they like to use. They throw around alphabet terms with ease. (What they are creating is the Natural Communities Conservation Plan. If you go to the public hearings, you’ll hear “NCCP” a great deal.) I’ve quoted Tippets here mainly because he’s the only one of the five I completely understood.

Thursday night’s session did begin a sense of trust; some residents at least felt that the government five were on their side. Jeannie Bernstein of Laguna Beach, once arrested during an anti-toll-road protest, said afterward:

“I’ve been to a lot of scoping meetings. This was a good one. What they’re proposing, it’s better than nothing. It’s way better than nothing.”

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com