El Toro Job Still Stuck on Approach

Negotiations continued without resolution Tuesday toward hiring former John Wayne Airport Director O.B. Schooley to take over planning for a commercial airport at the former El Toro Marine base.

Supervisors have until July 14 to negotiate a contract and nail down a job description for Schooley, who last week was chosen as interim executive director of the El Toro Redevelopment Authority. The post will report directly to supervisors, who will conduct a national search for a permanent director.

Sources within county government said the sticking point apparently is the fate of County Executive Officer Jan Mittermeier. She warned earlier this month that taking El Toro planning from her control would violate her contract, effectively terminating her. Her attorney, Wylie Aitken, said separating El Toro duties would force her out.

Supervisors have been unwilling to fire Mittermeier outright, which would qualify her for $170,000 in severance pay. They said they want Mittermeier to continue as chief executive for all other county duties--a situation that apparently is untenable to Schooley, who clashed with Mittermeier before leaving the county in 1998 after two decades of employment.

Mittermeier has been attending to her ill mother in the past month and hasn’t attended board meetings or other county briefings.

Mittermeier has fought the board’s action on El Toro, accusing members of diluting the authority of the CEO, a position created after the county’s 1994 bankruptcy. The job was seen as a way of restoring credibility in county government, particularly with Wall Street investment firms that still hold $1 billion in bonds borrowed to pay off bankruptcy debt.

Some high-level staffers speculated that Mittermeier may be holding out for more than just severance pay. A payout of her remaining contract, which runs until March, could add another $120,000 in salary to the severance amount, based on her current pay of $160,000 a year. However, supervisors Tuesday raised the upper salary level for executive managers, including Mittermeier, to $191,401--though she wasn’t given a pay increase. Her retirement benefits would be based on her final year of pay.

Whatever the outcome, the clash over Mittermeier’s future has spun the county’s El Toro office into limbo, with officials unsure who will head the office and whether Mittermeier will remain in any capacity with the county. The potential exists, they said, of employees who work with Schooley angering Mittermeier, who still would have control over their pay and career advancement.

Last week, Supervisor Todd Spitzer said Schooley would conduct business in a much more open and interactive fashion with board members, creating a fresh start for planning for the 4,700-acre base. Several supervisors have faulted Mittermeier for a secretive and inflexible management style.

Schooley heads his own aviation consulting firm, SI Partners in Santa Ana, which would contract with the county for interim El Toro management. He worked for the county for 21 years, including serving as finance manager at John Wayne Airport from 1987 to 1991, when he became assistant airport manager under Mittermeier. He took over as manager when Mittermeier became CEO in 1995.

Schooley left the county in 1998 after reportedly clashing with Mittermeier over airport management. He worked briefly for P&D; Aviation, the county’s airport planning consultant for El Toro, before opening his own consulting firm.

Also Tuesday, supervisors approved a payment of nearly $500,000 to El Toro airport foes for court costs in fighting a 1996 environmental review of the airport.