O.C. Group Pulls Plug on Millennium Wingding to Boost County

A bold plan to promote Orange County worldwide with two years of events linked to the millennium has collapsed for lack of corporate support, its originators said Wednesday.

Promoters had envisioned hundreds of high-profile events: international conferences on tourism, technology and health care; free five-day vacations for 2,000 families who would be flown in from around the nation; a millennium New Year’s gala for 25,000 people at a Marine Corps hangar in Tustin.

The Class of 2000 project, the brainchild of former Disneyland executives Jack Lindquist and Steve Clark, would have required at least $3.2 million, Lindquist said. Indeed, early estimates had been in the range of $8.5 million to $10 million.

“This county deserves something better than a small-time, half-baked affair,” said Lindquist, former president of the theme park.

But when only $2 million had been pledged as of Oct. 1, Lindquist’s group told the Orange County Business Council, which had backed the project, that it was throwing in the towel.

“It just can’t be done,” Lindquist said. “I think everybody involved did their jobs. There’s no finger-pointing. But the support from the private sector just wasn’t there.”

Lindquist said a company he set up for the venture, Orange County Millennium Inc., was reimbursed about $100,000 for costs before funds dried up. He said he and his partners spent an additional $150,000 to $200,000 before giving up.

“We had been financing the effort on our own for the last six or seven months,” he said.

Previously, the council had raised and spent $525,000, mainly from major corporations in the county, for a feasibility study before deciding last November to proceed. Some programs proposed as part of the Class of 2000 may still go forward independently, such as a Walt Disney Co.-sponsored Pacific Rim tourism summit, Lindquist said.