Supervisors’ El Toro Win Comes at a Price: a Black Eye From Judge Gray

He’s taken on Bob Dornan. He’s taken on Brad Gates. When it comes to speaking his mind, Judge Jim Gray usually doesn’t cramp up.

So it shouldn’t have been surprising to read what His Eminence had to say about the Orange County Board of Supervisors and the fumble-fingered way it has handled the El Toro airport issue in recent years.

On the other hand, talk about your easy targets.

I’m reading a transcript of Gray’s words now, and there’s not a single “whereas” anywhere in there.

It’s language anyone can understand and, if it came with a drawing, it would be of the judge with steam coming out of his ears.

The occasion was Gray’s ruling on whether anti-airport advocates used misleading language on a petition drive for which they’d already collected 128,000 signatures.

Did I describe what Gray submitted as a “ruling”? I should have said a “trashing.”

“You’re welcome to sit down if you want,” he said to the assembled lawyers for both sides. “But don’t get too comfortable.”

Lawyers start to squirm when judges begin their remarks like that. About the best they can hope for after that is that the judge doesn’t mention them by name in open court.

Gray didn’t. What he did in his opening remarks was less legalese and more the judicial equivalent of a long, low wail that could have come from any corner of Orange County.

“I don’t think I’ve ever done this before, but I am going to anyway, out of a sense of frustration [of mine] and probably everybody else in the county that is a taxpayer and a voter,” he said.

Amen, brother.

“The county has a magnificent opportunity to have 4,700 or so acres of prime land handed back to it by the federal government and this county has received the total disservice of the officials in Orange County as to that issue,” Gray said.

“There has never been a neutral study talking about options [or] weighing benefits and limitations openly and honestly as to those options. Instead, what we have is probably the most fractionated issue in my time here in Orange County.”

Picture a chorus of Orange County citizens--who have gone to the polls three times already on the airport and probably aren’t done yet--screaming, “Yes, judge, yes!”

Acknowledging that North County and South County generally have been divided over the proposed airport, the judge said, “From a geographical standpoint, it depends where you live as to how you want this to happen.

“Now, that’s fine from a political standpoint. People are elected to represent geographical areas and that’s the way the system is, and I have no quarrel with it, but here we have supposedly nonpartisan elected officials called upon to perform neutral judicial functions representing the entire county and they are not doing it, in my view, and that is shown by the record.”

The judge then threw a curveball by ruling against the anti-airport group. He said its petition touting a large park and open space instead of an airport was misleading both in title and summary of what it would provide.

In other words, Gray actually ruled for the three-member board majority that wants an airport.

Yet, I doubt the three were cheering their good fortune.

Gray is a veteran judge who was in the forefront locally several years ago in questioning America’s “war on drugs.” As such, Gray rankled longtime Sheriff Brad Gates. Gray remained outspoken on the issue, however, and wrote the recently published book, “Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It.”

In 1998, he challenged the combative Dornan in the Republican primary race for Congress. Gray finished third, behind Dornan and runner-up Lisa Hughes.

Earlier this week, the pro-airport board majority carried the day in a 3-2 vote not to appeal Gray’s ruling.

On the other side, the anti-airport group behind the petition drive said it will appeal Gray’s ruling, rather than start the signature-collecting process over again. If it eventually does that, however, it likely wouldn’t be able to do so in time for the March ballot, as it hoped.

But while the three-member majority doesn’t want to appeal Gray’s ruling, it no doubt would love to have his broadside about the board’s performance stricken from the record.

No such luck.

But that’s the way it goes with the supervisors when it comes to El Toro: Even when they win, they lose.

*

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821; by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626; or by e-mail at dana.parsons@latimes.com.