Where's the Great Park?
By Stephen C. Smith
Irvine Tattler Publisher
Posted March 3, 2008
Six Years After Measure W,
The Great Park Has a Grounded Balloon and Not Much Else
Six years ago on March 5, the people of Orange County approved
Measure W, which rezoned the closed El Toro Marine Corps base into "The Orange County Central Park and Nature Preserve."
"The People of the County of Orange do ordain and enact as follows," it began, a statement a judge would later rule
meant that the will of the voters, not the Orange County Board of Supervisors, had the final authority over the project.
The opening statement continued:
This Initiative will allow for the creation of one of America’s greatest parks, with open space, sports and
recreation facilities, museums, libraries, arts and cultural attractions, and a home for major universities and research
centers. It will also not generate the traffic, congestion, noise, and air pollution associated with the development of a
commercial airport.
Measure W passed by a 58% to 42% vote, and brought to an end eight years of the most divisive politics seen in the county's
history. It could be called Orange County's civil war. The battle pitted north Orange County against south Orange County,
pro-airport against anti-airport, and even raised the possibility of a secession movement.
Six years later, not much has changed.
Orange County's "central park" is now called the Great Park, but so far there's not much that's great about it.
With $100 million spent by the City of Irvine, the only significant attraction is the Great Park Balloon — which
has been grounded after allegations by a
former pilot that it's unsafe.
The old military runways, the very symbol of the Orange County civil war, are still in place despite a May 2006 ceremony (closed
to the public) that was supposed to commence their demolition.
The contractor hired by Lennar, the City of Irvine's Great Park developer partner, left in January after waiting two years for Lennar to finalize a contract.
Where did it go wrong?
Measure W Invalidated by Irvine Takeover
Federal law governing base closures requires that the neighboring communities determine its fate. These are typically
nearby cities and towns, along with a regional component such as a county government. They form a Local
Redevelopment Agency (LRA), and adopt a "Community Reuse Plan" which will be recognized by the military.
When El Toro closed, the cities of Irvine and Lake Forest joined with the County of Orange to form an agency called
the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority (ETRPA). This nine-member board was intended to provide a balanced process for determining
El Toro's future, incorporating the concerns of the residents in the two most affected cities. The Pentagon recognized ETRPA
as the official LRA for the base.
A November 1994 ballot initiative called Measure A changed all that. Passed by a countywide vote of 51% to 49%, it called for
an international airport at El Toro and transferred planning authority to the county Board of Supervisors, who were pro-airport.
The Navy didn't have to recognize Measure A, but they did, and so began Orange County's eight-year civil war.
Measure W passed in March 2002. In the same election, Chris Norby was named to the Supervisors' Fourth District seat,
tilting the Board to a 3-2 anti-airport majority. The initiative survived legal challenges, and in November 2003 the City of Irvine
was allowed to annex the base.
Irvine promised to honor the spirit of Measure W, but was not bound by it. Measure W was a county initiative, and was
therefore applicable only to the County's General Plan. That meant a 3-2 Irvine City Council majority could determine El Toro's
future.
ETRPA, which had grown to represent all the cities of south Orange County, chose to turn over El Toro's fate to Irvine. Even
Lake Forest, an adjacent city, walked away from the project.
This may have been the first misstep. Had ETRPA resumed its role as the LRA, it would have exercised checks and balances
over the reuse process. One city's council majority could not have dictated El Toro's fate.
Naked Political Interests
In late 2003, the City of Irvine founded the Orange County Great Park Corporation (OCGPC), a non-profit organization that
was to build and fund the Great Park. After some initial debate, the final governing structure was a
nine-member Board of Directors — the five members of the City Council, and four members at large who were to
represent "the people of Orange County."
This may have been the second misstep. By including Irvine's elected officials on the Board, it exposed decisions to
naked political interests, particularly those of one-time Mayor and now councilman Larry Agran, who since 2005 has been
the OCGPC's chairman of the board. Agran's city council allies, Mayor Beth Krom and Councilman Sukhee Kang, also sit
on the board.
Council members Christina Shea and Steven Choi are their frequent critics and often on the losing end of 7-2 Board votes,
as the four "independent" directors almost always vote as Agran does.
In 2004, a series of scandals began to emerge that were tied to Agran and his political allies.
OC Weekly reported on September 2, 2004 that
Agran strategist and fundraiser Ed Dornan may have been involved in a scheme to get Great Park contracts. The article
alleged that Dornan and other Agran cronies had registered various fictitious business names in Sacramento that had Great Park
connections.
In February 2005, the Weekly reported that
the OCGPC had hired pro-airport leader Bruce Nestande as a consultant for $90,000.
In June 2005, the Weekly reported that
the OCGPC had hired as its staff attorney a law firm with political ties to Agran.
In July 2005, the Weekly reported that
the OCGPC gave a $1.4 million no-bid contract to Forde & Mollrich, a political consultant firm with ties to Agran.
When council members Steven Choi and Christina Shea questioned the no-bid contracts,
they were attacked at the dais by Agran and Krom. This led Agran and Krom to
propose an amendment to City rules that would allow Mayor Krom to punish any council member she thought was being critical.
The allegations led the Orange County Grand Jury to conduct a civil investigation into the Great Park's operation. Their June 2006 report concluded that a "three
member bloc" (Agran, Krom and Kang) had violated the intent of Measure W.
Most recently, Choi and Shea brought suit against the OCGPC because
Agran withheld from them the resumés of candidates after a Search Committee headed by Agran chose an Agran friend from
Chicago to be the new CEO. The suit is due to begin trial on March 11.
Great Park Corporation Authority Undermined
One reason for creating the OCGPC was to create a financial firewall between the Great Park and the City of Irvine. If
the Great Park ran into financial difficulties, no one could raid the city's General Fund tax dollars to build the project. If
the city was strapped for cash, the City Council couldn't loot the Great Park treasury.
That firewall was supposed to be formalized in 2005 by a formal agreement between the OCGPC and the City of Irvine, but
somewhere along the line a decision was made behind the scenes to remove the firewall. That was the third misstep.
During a June 23, 2005 meeting of the OCGPC Board, staff attorney Rob Thornton informed the Board that a finalized "Lease
and Operating Agreement" would be brought to the Board for approval on July 14. This Agreement would formalize the OCGPC's
takeover of the Great Park. Thornton said:
... The structure of the Agreement reflects the relationship as intended and set out, the relationship between the City and the
Corporation really that's been that you and the City have developed over time, and that's reflected in the Development Agreement
documents, etc. As you all know, the City would actually receive the conveyance of property from Heritage Fields, pursuant to
the Development Agreement. There then would be a lease entered into between the City and the Corporation. For those portions
of the property that are referred to by the acronym of the LIFOC, a Lease In Furtherance Of Conveyance, there actually would be a
sub-lease that would be entered into. The term is 99 years. The use of the funds, the funds that the Corporation would receive
from the City, are set out, and of course, those are the Development Agreement proceeds, and then whatever proceeds that would be
allocable to the Corporation's activities from the Community Facilities District bond proceeds.
But the Agreement never materialized.
The Irvine Tattler has located a draft of
the proposed Agreement dated October 24, 2005. This was more than three months after the promised July 14 delivery date. But
it was never brought to the Board or the City Council.
Shea and Choi began to ask questions. In response, Krom and Kang were appointed to investigate.
Agran's allies proposed a City Council resolution that reduced the OCGPC Board of Directors
to an advisory body. From now on, the City Council would be in charge of the Great Park — or, technically speaking, the
City Council majority.
So instead of formally turning over control of the Great Park to "the people of Orange County" as promised during the
Measure W campaign, the three-member majority of Agran, Krom and Kang voted to give themselves control of the Great Park.
Lennar Fails to Develop
On September 12, 2006, Mayor Beth Krom kicked off her re-election campaign during a live telecast of the Irvine City Council
meeting by announcing she had negotiated a new agreement with Lennar, the Great Park's
development partner.
Lennar and the City of Irvine had entered into an agreement in July 2005, following the sale of part of El Toro to
the development company. The basic idea was that the Great Park would be funded by property tax and assessment district
revenue generated by Lennar's development of their land under the project name
Heritage Fields. Lennar would also pay $200 million in development fees.
Krom proposed amending the agreement with a new scheme she claimed would increase Great Park funding to $1.4 billion. No
documents were ever presented to the public explaining how this number was reached. She simply claimed the number as hers. Nor
did she explain when this revenue would be generated, or how its cash flow would be tied to the pace of Great Park development.
In her presentation, Krom claimed that by the summer of 2009 the Great Park would have a Great Meadow, a sports park,
a visitor and conference center, a public golf course, a shuttle system and a non-profit center.
The Great Park design moved ahead, with plans drawn regardless of ability to pay for turning those dreams into reality.
When the housing market experienced a downturn in 2007, Lennar was one of the worst hit.
Lennar experienced a 30 percent cancellation rate on new home purchases and a 39 percent drop in new housing orders in 2007,
according to the Miami Herald.
Part of that slowdown affected Lennar's Orange County projects. The Orange County Register reported on
November 7, 2007 that Lennar was slowing
development projects in Irvine and Anaheim until market conditions improve.
At the same time,
Standard & Poor's Rating Services cut Lennar's debt ranking to junk status, according to the Sacramento
Business Journal. The Standard & Poor's web site today still shows a
"BB+/Negative" junk status for Lennar.
The Great Park: Illusion and Reality
Irvine residents recently received in their mail boxes the latest Orange County Great Park Benchmark Report. The brochure
reports that the Board has approved more programs, a "Preview Park" will enhance the current balloon site, and that if/when
it flies again the rides will continue to be free, paid for by the dwindling Lennar development fee reserves.
Most disconcerting is a two-page splash titled, "Major Park Programs Undergo Further Study." The sub-headline reads,
"Feasibility studies will be conducted on Great Park programs to examine their cost, potential revenues, where the
program might be located and other considerations."
$100 million has already been spent, yet we're told more studies are required. It seems that few if any of the features
planned for the summer of 2009 will become reality.
Los Angeles Times
columnist Dana Parsons recently joked, "I'm in my late 50s and in excellent health, but is it too cynical to ask if this
park will be finished in my lifetime?"
The answer may be no. And that's no joke.
The Irvine Tattler acknowledges Len Kranser's El Toro Info Site as
a significant resource for researching this article.
