Orange Election May Hinge on El Toro

Airport politics, a staple of South County civic life for the last seven years, has spread north to Orange, where allegiances over the county’s plans to build an airport at El Toro affected one election and could influence a second.

Orange voters will decide June 5 who should fill the council’s fifth seat, left vacant after Councilman Mark Murphy was elected mayor in November. Two council members--Murphy and Joanne Coontz, the city’s former mayor--are pro-airport; two members--Mike Alvarez and Dan Slater--oppose the county’s airport plans.

“Essentially, we’re going to become a battleground over El Toro,” said Alvarez, who has appealed to anti-airport forces for help promoting an airport foe for the fifth council seat. The 10-day filing period for candidates opened Monday.

Though the airport fight hasn’t resonated with Orange like it has with voters to the south, where the Marine base is, “the airport will become an issue because of the amount of money being spent,” Alvarez said.

Orange has been a key North County ally for pro-airport forces, voting a year ago to support the county’s plan. If Orange were to switch sides, it would be a coup for airport foes, who insist that their position is shared from north to south.

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Airport politics intervened in the November election in Orange, when the Airport Working Group spent $54,016 on mailers supporting two pro-airport candidates, Coontz and Scott Steiner, and opposing two anti-airport candidates, Alvarez and Carolyn Cavecche. The group, based in Newport Beach, supports a commercial airport at El Toro to relieve pressure on John Wayne Airport.

Longtime government watchdog Shirley Grindle of Orange has asked for city and state investigations into whether the group violated campaign laws with its heavy spending on the race, which had a $500-per-person contribution limit.

While a city ordinance allows independent campaigns for or against candidates, the $500 limit applies if the race accounts for more than 25% of a group’s expenditures during the 12 months before an election.

The $54,016, most of which was spent opposing Alvarez, represented 81% of the Airport Working Group’s expenditures.

A spokesman for the Airport Working Group was traveling Monday and couldn’t be reached for comment. The chairman of the group referred calls to attorney and longtime airport activist Barbara Lichman, who couldn’t be reached for comment.

The bulk of the group’s money was raised from three people: $39,000 from Doy Henley of Tustin, including a $26,000 loan; $25,000 from former Supervisor William Steiner, Scott Steiner’s father; and $5,000 from John V. Croul of Newport Beach.

Grindle said the Airport Working Group also didn’t properly report all of its contributions, which came in the closing days of the campaign.

However, Grindle said the airport was probably less of an issue motivating the group’s involvements than the candidacy of Scott Steiner, a deputy district attorney making his first run for elective office. William Steiner, who left office in 1998, raised money for his son, who lost to Coontz and Alvarez.

“This was all about getting Scott Steiner elected,” Grindle said. “This will be a campaign issue [in June] because of what [the Airport Working Group] did in the last election. I hope they back away from the Orange election and don’t get involved again, no matter what their reasons are.”

Airport Working Group Chairman Tom Naughton said he couldn’t say whether the group would be active in the election.

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Involvement by both sides of the airport fight is expected, however, as the contentious issue takes a yearlong hiatus from the county ballot. The next countywide vote involving the airport will be in March 2002, when airport foes attempt for a second time to repeal the airport’s 1994 voter approval.

Alvarez was targeted long before the November election, after he became a vocal North County spokesman for the anti-airport movement. He was the only North County official to sign the ballot statement in support of Measure F, an anti-airport measure that passed in March 2000 but was overturned in December by a judge.