Judge Halts County’s Airport PR Effort

Orange County’s Just the Facts program promoting a proposed airport at El Toro was grounded Friday by a San Diego County judge.

The ruling by Superior Court Judge Charles R. Hayes muzzles the county’s airport outreach three months before a critical March vote that could replace an airfield at the former Marine base with a large urban park.

The pro-airport majority on the Board of Supervisors had authorized about $6 million this fiscal year for the El Toro public information campaign. About half of that has been spent, El Toro program manager Gary Simon said Friday.

“Quite clearly, we fully intend to comply with the court’s order,” Simon said.

But the county cannot stop a final postcard already in the mail to county residents, he said; it was distributed through the county’s partnership with the Orange County Regional Airport Authority. The county had been distributing one newsletter a month, with the authority also sending periodic mailings.

“I would call it an $8-million present for the citizens of Orange County,” said attorney Richard Jacobs, who represents the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, an anti-airport coalition of cities that sued the county over its airport outreach. He was referring to spending authorized over the last 18 months for the program.

Hayes issued a tentative decision earlier this month ordering the county not to advocate either way on the upcoming initiative. But he didn’t pull the plug on the county’s Just the Facts program until Friday.

He has not yet ruled on whether previous spending was illegal.

During a court hearing Thursday, Jacobs argued that the county, by promoting an airport, was spending money to oppose the March measure.

State law forbids spending government funds to support or oppose any ballot initiative or candidate.

Jacobs unfurled the county’s latest mailer as proof. He said it contained four pages of airport information and one sentence about the fact that an environmental review had found that the airport plan would worsen traffic, noise and air pollution.

“The whole point behind this ruling is the recognition that government can’t take sides on an initiative measure,” Jacobs said. “The judge is saying, ‘Let’s level the playing field.’ ”

Hayes also ordered the county to neither promote nor discourage the use of El Toro as a commercial airport and to provide “open and evenhanded information devoting equal time and space to all issues, both pro and con” involving the airport.

County attorneys and El Toro planners were meeting Friday to discuss the reach of the ruling and whether it prevented two public-relations consultants from being paid for work already done.

Deputy County Counsel Don Rubin said the county believes the ruling bars payment of any invoices for work completed before Dec. 7, the date of Hayes’ tentative ruling, until there is a trial on whether the spending so far has been proper.

Supervisor Todd Spitzer said the county should scrap the entire program. He and Supervisor Tom Wilson, who oppose the proposed airport, advocate a freeze on all spending on the El Toro program, whose funding comes from John Wayne Airport revenue. The board’s pro-airport majority--Supervisors Cynthia P. Coad, Chuck Smith and Jim Silva--have blocked such a move.

John Wayne Airport is facing a $10.4-million deficit this fiscal year, in part because of increased security measures required after the September terrorist attacks.

“I’m thrilled the judge realized the Just the Facts campaign is a sham,” Spitzer said. “The county hasn’t been evenhanded, and the judge has at least tentatively said the funding wasn’t appropriate. The county hasn’t been getting out just the facts, it’s been just their facts.”

Jacobs said a trial on the spending will focus on a request by airport foes that the firms of Townsend Raimundo Besler & Usher of Sacramento and Amies Communications of Irvine refund the money they received for their work on the county program.

The Townsend firm’s $5-million contract was for work through the airport authority; Amies’ contract for county informational materials was for $3 million.

No court date has been set for the trial. The Board of Supervisors also must decide whether to appeal Hayes’ ruling. No date has been set for that decision, Rubin said.

Coad, the board chairman, said Friday that the county will comply with Hayes’ ruling.

She said, however, that she is worried about not being able to pay outstanding bills from the two consultants.

“We want to make sure that these companies receive their pay,” she said.

Tristan Krogius, volunteer fund drive chairman for the Yes on Measure W campaign, said airport foes had been asking for private donations to counter the county’s “illegal spending spreading pro-airport misinformation.”

“I hope that the three [pro-airport] supervisors are ordered to pay it back personally,” he said.