Supervisors OK El Toro Severance Pay

The end of Orange County’s eight-year effort to build an airport at El Toro became official Monday when supervisors approved a severance package for program manager Gary Simon, who will leave his post June 6.

The Board of Supervisors eliminated the El Toro office and Simon’s position last month and put the program under County Executive Officer Michael Schumacher. The board decided against letting Simon continue planning for an airport after a county measure approved by voters in March changed the zoning to that of a park and other development. Irvine wants to annex the former Marine base and control its redevelopment.

Under a plan approved unanimously Monday by the board, with Supervisor Jim Silva absent, Simon will leave the $182,000-a-year job he has held since January 2001 with the same severance package as if he had been fired. Simon will receive seven months’ pay, about $106,000. Supervisors agreed that they had voided Simon’s contract by eliminating his job.

The board discussed Simon’s departure last week but delayed a final vote after Supervisor Todd Spitzer protested a portion of a resolution that praised Simon’s job performance. The language ultimately approved states simply that Simon will leave the county.

“Gary’s departure signifies the final chapter to the El Toro story from the county’s perspective,” Spitzer said Monday. “There is now no pro-airport figurehead to be identified with this losing battle.”

Supervisor Chuck Smith, who supported an airport, said that Simon, a builder of other large projects, was hired to build an airport, a job voters eliminated. “There’s no point in him sticking around,” Smith said. “It doesn’t reflect on him at all. I think Gary’s done an outstanding job. We part very good friends. It’s unfortunate he had to spend more time with the politics.”

In a farewell statement, Simon said he was leaving to pursue other job opportunities but didn’t elaborate. During an interview, he said he had received “interesting phone calls from Sacramento and Washington” to continue working in the public sector but had made no decisions.

“The entire El Toro team of staff, counsel, consultants and contractors performed exemplary work in a highly professional manner under circumstances that everyone agrees were highly charged and challenging,” Simon’s statement said. “Working under extremely high levels of scrutiny and pressure, the El Toro team never lost its composure and always treated everyone with the utmost respect. I wish the future stewards of El Toro the best of luck.”

He ended with a warning that the area’s future demands for additional airport capacity need “to be solved in one way or another.... The battle over El Toro is behind us, and it is indeed time for healing, but the challenge of meeting the growing aviation demand in Southern California remains.”

Simon oversaw an agency of 29 employees, most of whom found jobs elsewhere in Orange County government. Last year, the office’s budget was $11.8 million.

This was Simon’s second stint with the county. He had headed El Toro’s real-estate team a year earlier, but left to work for an engineering firm hired for an expansion of Los Angeles International Airport.

Simon returned to head an El Toro office that for the first time reported directly to supervisors. The office was moved in May 2000 from the control of then-County Executive Officer Jan Mittermeier, who left the county after arguing that the change breached her contract.

Spitzer repeatedly had sparred with Simon over El Toro. In December 2001, Spitzer protested after thousands of county-funded postcards touting the airport were authorized by Simon and Deputy County Counsel Don Rubin after a judge tentatively ruled that public money couldn’t be used to advocate the airport. County attorneys said the ruling didn’t prohibit the mailers. Simon had told Spitzer in a meeting that same day that no more mailers were contemplated.

The judge later clarified the ruling and specifically barred the county’s El Toro mailings. By then, many of the postcards already had been delivered to the post office.