With El Toro Still Grounded, Mittermeier Might Take Off

Continued frustration over Orange County’s stalled plans for a new airport at El Toro and complaints of a secretive management style have increased pressure on County Executive Officer Jan Mittermeier to look for “new challenges,” Board of Supervisors Chairman Charles V. Smith said Saturday.

Mittermeier intensified speculation over her future Friday by interviewing for a deputy directorship at Los Angeles International Airport. The former director of John Wayne Airport, Mittermeier was hired as the county’s top administrator in 1995 in the wake of the county’s historic bankruptcy.

“If I were her, I’d be looking for new challenges for myself,” Smith said. “Some change has to be made and she knows that. She may figure that with change coming, it isn’t going to benefit her. There is a management dilemma for the board right now and I’m sure she’s smart enough to see it.”

Mittermeier confirmed that she applied for the LAX post but said Saturday that she will withdraw her application on Monday, now that her interest has become public.

“All I was doing was talking to them,” she said. “Any time there is a potential job you might be interested in, you’re not very smart if you don’t investigate it.”

She declined further comment, other than to say she was angry that someone close to the interview process had “released confidential information” about her candidacy.

Smith said Mittermeier has been aware for some time that the pro-airport majority on the board is unhappy with her handling of El Toro, a project beset with repeated delays. At the same time, the board’s two anti-airport supervisors have complained about what one official called Mittermeier’s “Kremlin” style of secretive and inflexible leadership.

Though they praised Mittermeier for streamlining the county bureaucracy after the bankruptcy, supervisors have at times been publicly critical of her handling of specific issues. Among the points of contention were the reassignment of longtime county manager John Sibley and the investigation of unfounded harassment allegations against popular County Clerk-Recorder Gary L. Granville, who is elected.

The March 7 passage of Measure F, which among other things restricts the county from building a new airport without a public vote, sparked another round of criticism. Mittermeier’s office was faulted for failing to present supervisors with an analysis of the measure’s restrictions and a contingency plan for dealing with them.

County attorneys last week asked a court to overturn a key portion of the measure, although the Board of Supervisors took a “neutral” position on its overall validity.

Supervisor Cynthia Coad, a supporter of Mittermeier, said she has full confidence in the chief executive despite the setbacks on the airport.

“There is a difference between feeling disappointed with the way things are being played out” and encouraging Mittermeier to leave, she said.

Mittermeier’s interest in the LAX job is an indication that she “might like something more action-oriented than where El Toro is at the moment,” Coad said.

Smith said Mittermeier may have seen herself at some point becoming the manager of an international airport at El Toro, and that prospect has faded.

“Right now it doesn’t look good for her [doing that] at El Toro whether it’s built or not,” he said.

Although the board gave Mittermeier a new contract in fall 1998 with a $12,000 raise to $160,000, the recent uncertainty over her future has extended to her staff. In the past six months, three of her top staffers found other jobs within county government or with private companies.