Cities Mobilize Against El Toro Planning Board : Base conversion: Eleven North County municipalities will try to block formation of 9-member agency approved in December, which they say is not broad-based. They will lobby supervisors, the Pentagon.

GARDEN GROVE — Worried that they will have little say in deciding future uses of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, officials of 11 North County cities Thursday decided to try to block the formation of the base planning agency accepted last month by the County Board of Supervisors and Irvine.

Although the supervisors unanimously approved creation of the agency in December, which would make a renewed attempt to change the agency’s makeup seem futile, the city officials at Thursday’s meeting said they continued to doubt that the county’s agreement with Irvine is a “done deal.”

Newport Beach Mayor Clarence J. Turner, explaining what he said was an urgent need for the cities to lobby for a broader-based agency board, said, “The more you sit back, the farther the train gets down the track, and the harder it is to stop. If we (are) . . . kind of going along and saying we are going to trust that decision-making body, we are going to make a mistake.”

The governing board of the planning agency tentatively approved by the supervisors and Irvine last month would have nine board members--all five supervisors, three Irvine City Council members, and one from Lake Forest.

The North County city officials who formally came out in opposition to the fledgling agency Thursday believe the makeup of the board is biased against development of a commercial airport at 4,700-acre base.

They agreed to seek formal resolutions from their city councils opposing the agency’s makeup that they would send to the Board of Supervisors, as well as to the Defense Department to show that the proposal lacks the broad-based community support that the federal government requires.

“If we put pressure on (the supervisors), they are going to sit up and take notice. They just cannot keep doing what they want to do,” said Anaheim Councilman Irv Pickler.

Seal Beach Councilman Frank Laszlo warned that this may be the county’s last chance to get another airport. “If we let this one go, you are not going to get (an airport) anymore.”

The group attending the strategy meeting at Garden Grove City Hall was a subset of the 17 cities, representing almost 70% of the county’s population, that favors another governing board proposal: an 11-member decision-making board made up of the supervisors, one city official from each of the five supervisorial districts, and a representative from Irvine.

Two business and community groups favoring conversion of El Toro to a commercial airport also attended the meeting.

Barbara Lichman of the Newport Beach-based Airport Working Group, said the organizations would unveil in two weeks their planned petition drive to place the El Toro issue on the November ballot. Lichman would not say what voters would be asked to decide, saying the issue is still under legal review.

Eugene H. Moriarty, chairman of the Committee For El Toro Airport Tomorrow, added that the countywide ballot initiative “is kind of in the wings, as we say in show business.”

Donald Tanney, the county registrar of voters, said the signatures of 66,703 registered voters must be submitted to the county by June 1 to place an item on the ballot. The petition gatherers have until March 11 to notify the county of their intent to collect signatures, Tanney said this week.

Irvine Mayor Michael Ward and Councilman Barry J. Hammond, who negotiated the agreement with the county, questioned the motives of the North County city officials.

“Their whole purpose is to have an airport and . . . to share in the revenues of an airport,” Ward said. “And they are calling us unfair because they think we are against an airport?”

Added Hammond: “It’s nothing more than their attempt to keep the issue alive in the media. . . . I don’t think there’s a high probability of (the plan) changing.”

But still unresolved is Irvine’s demand that in exchange for accepting the county-proposed agency, the county must begin “serious discussions” on Irvine’s proposed annexation of the base. And Lake Forest, which was left out of the final negotiations, has not committed to the plan.

“I think there’s probably trouble in paradise,” Anaheim Assistant City Manager David Morgan told the North County officials.

Nor is there total agreement among North County cities over how to proceed should the county-Irvine plan become a reality--whether to submit a rival redevelopment proposal to the Defense Department, or “watchdog” the county agency that was to hold its first meeting sometime this month.

Garden Grove Councilman Mark Leyes, who chairs the Orange County Regional Airport Authority, argued for a cohesive strategy.

“We are fighting a war with one soldier at a time. If we all would make the assault at once, then we would seem to stand a better chance” of influencing the outcome, Leyes said.

Pickler suggested that the three-city airport authority could pick up more members if it changed its name from the Orange County Regional Airport Authority to the El Toro Conversion Authority, reflecting a willingness to objectively consider all redevelopment options.