County Looks Toward a Coming of Age in ’85

It will be a year of champagne toasts and reminiscences, looking ahead to whatever 1985 holds and--something that Orange County has not had much of an opportunity for--looking back.

Members of Orange County’s 60,000-strong-and-growing Vietnamese community commemorate a decade away from their homeland.

Cal State Fullerton, the university that took in the children of a new generation of suburbanites, is preparing for its Silver Jubilee.

And Disneyland, the first worldwide landmark to emerge from the housing tracts and neighborhood dime stores of a younger Orange County, turns 30.

It is the year when Orange County, home of master planning, condominiums and gas stations without signs, settles into its own kind of maturity.

For the county’s 2.1 million residents--whose ranks will swell by an additional 30,000 during the year--1985 will be a year of fast-paced growth and planning for even more growth in the decades to come: in short, a time when Orange County as an urban hub comes dramatically into focus:

- John Wayne Airport, opened decades ago with a tiny terminal to serve the turboprop planes that carried passengers as far away as Las Vegas and Catalina, could be expanded to handle 55 jet flights a day this year--significantly more than the current 41--and eventually 73 daily flights and 10.2 million passengers a year under a $190-million master plan up for review in late January.

- The county’s first truly high-rise construction will get under way, with several new towers planned for the area around the airport, while Costa Mesa and Santa Ana race to see which city will house the county’s tallest building. Two buildings going up in 1985 will rise 22 stories or more.

- Apartment construction, for years at a virtual standstill, will be up 23% this year. Among the 8,600 new units will be a 719-unit high-rise apartment structure in Costa Mesa.

- New retail facilities will sprout up all over the landscape. An expansion plan for South Coast Plaza scheduled for completion by the end of the year will include two new major department stores and an additional 200,000 square feet of specialty shops. The Irvine Co.’s renovation of Fashion Island will be virtually complete. The company’s long-planned Irvine Center development will get under way. And Santa Ana will break ground on what city officials say is the largest development project in county history, a $400-million expansion of Fashion Square and an office-hotel development.

- A $5-million project for an Alton Parkway overpass providing access to the Santa Ana Freeway will be completed in March. And the long-awaited Broadway Avenue overpass in Santa Ana, a $12-million access over the Santa Ana Freeway to Fashion Square, will be completed as well.

- Employment in the county in 1985 could well top the 1 million mark for the first time, according to the Center for Economic Research at Chapman College, and median family income will hit an all-time high of $39,200.

To many county officials and business leaders, this flush of activity doesn’t signal a return to the boom-town growth of Orange County’s early, tendril-of-Los Angeles years. Rather, it is evidence that the county is becoming an urban center in its own right, a maturing community deemed ripe for major business investment.

“The kind of dynamics we’re seeing reflect a kind of maturing, in a sense, of Orange County, as a center in a financial and business sense,” said Thomas Nielsen, president of the Irvine Co, adding:

“I think that’s being reflected in the office construction, the Performing Arts Center. I think all of those things are reflecting people’s willingness to invest in this county, and I think that’s very encouraging to people who are interested in making business decisions and investment decisions.”

The next 12 months also will set the stage for groundwork that must be laid to carry the county through the remainder of the decade and into the 1990s.

Land Development Fee

Cities throughout the county will be deciding on a controversial new fee that will begin assessing land developers for more than half the costs of three new freeways proposed for the still-developing southeastern, southwestern and northeastern sectors of Orange County.

The Board of Supervisors will decide on a site for a sorely needed new county jail, designed to accommodate as many as 6,000 prisoners, and construction could begin as early as September on a new $60-million intake and release center at the existing main jail in Santa Ana.

A key issue also to be resolved--another byproduct of urban growth--is the problem of hazardous waste generated in the home and by industry. County officials expect to develop a program this year to help homeowners dispose of their toxic chemicals legally, and a special task force is studying the possibility of locating a hazardous waste treatment or processing center within the county or nearby.

“I enter the year with optimism that we can probably come up with a resolution to a number of these problems,” said Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, who is expected to chair the Board of Supervisors during 1985.

“On the problem of the airport, I think there’s been frustration on all sides, but I think there’s maybe the best opportunity since I’ve been on the board to find some way to accommodate each other’s more strident views,” he said. “I’ve instructed our staff to work as if all my 10 1/2 years on this board had been directed toward this one moment.”

Indeed, the upcoming decision on the airport highlights transportation as a key issue of 1985. But there are others. Here are some of the developments that might be expected over the next 12 months:

Transportation Airport Plan Vote Will Affect Flights The Jan. 30 vote on the airport master plan willimmediately affect not only the number of flights operating out of the facility but the number of airlines as well. Part of the package up for a decision is an airline access plan to determine which carriers now competing for entry to John Wayne Airport will be permitted a share of the limited jet flights.

Moreover, the Board of Supervisors will decide on a land use compatibility plan designed to make the area immediately adjacent to the airport--primarily Santa Ana Heights and small portions of Newport Beach--compatible with the noise of overflying jets. That could include replacing thousands of homes with offices or parks, soundproofing the homes, phasing in quieter jets or some combination of the three.

Another key transportation issue will be accommodating an ever-growing number of cars on the already-congested freeway and highway system, particularly in the wake of voters’ overwhelming defeat last year of a 1-cent sales tax increase to pay for road and transit improvements.

This year, tax hikes are out. Instead, county transportation officials will ask the Legislature to allow them to tap into the interest on an $85-million fund currently reserved for mass-transit projects. If passed, the measure could generate $8.5 million a year or more, some for new freeway construction, some for local roads and highways.

Fees for Freeways

Beginning in January, city and county officials will be asked to review an overall structure for a program to assess developers most of the costs for the proposed Foothill, eastern and San Joaquin Hills freeways. The document up for review is designed to alleviate the concerns of officials in many cities along the route who are fearful that the fees could cause developers to build elsewhere and worry that some cities are not being asked to pay their fair share.

The fee program, already adopted by the county for the unincorporated areas, would be the largest of its kind in California.

And the county’s lobbyist in Washington will again push Congress to assist the county in paying its share of the San Joaquin Hills facility. A similar bill was unsuccessful last year.

It is also likely that 1985 will see the first steps toward implementing $1.4 billion worth of planned improvements to the Santa Ana Freeway, with improvements to the interchange with the Costa Mesa Freeway first on the list. Eventually, much of the freeway through the most populous portion of the county will be widened to eight lanes. The plan also calls for installing car-pool and bus lanes along much of the route. But all of that takes money, and only a small portion of the needed $1.4 billion is in hand so far.

Transportation planners expect to finish designing a system of sophisticated traffic flow improvements to convert Beach Boulevard into the county’s first “superstreet” during 1985.

Finally, Santa Ana’s new regional transportation center, an intercity commuter station designed to centralize regional train, bus and taxi service, will open in late 1985.

Development

More Than 17,000 Dwellings Expected In addition to the 8,600 apartments scheduled for construction, development industry analysts expect about 9,000 homes to be built--slightly fewer than the number built in 1984 and selling for slightly less than new homes last year, partly because of relatively high interest rates.

In addition to the new shopping malls and office construction around the airport and South Coast Plaza area, a number of other major construction projects are in the works for 1985.

The Irvine Co.’s Hilton Hotel will open in Irvine, and its Four Seasons Hotel at Newport Center will near completion.

Santa Ana will break ground in May on a major auto center near Edinger Avenue and the Costa Mesa Freeway, a network of nine dealers that city officials expect will be the largest of its kind in Southern California.

Major Retail Center

In Costa Mesa, a major retail center near 19th Street and Harbor Boulevard will begin construction shortly after the first of the year, and city officials are also completing plans for two new hotels in the South Coast Metro area that could be under construction before the end of the year.

In Anaheim, work will continue on a $200-million complex of office towers, a hotel, shops, residences and parking garages in the city’s downtown redevelopment area.

Much of the Irvine Co.’s most significant development activity will occur near the so-called “Golden Triangle”--an area bounded by the Santa Ana, San Diego and Laguna freeways--that until now has been covered by orange groves and row crops. This year, the first portions of the Irvine Technological Center and the Irvine Center retail and commercial complex will get under way, company officials said.

The Irvine Co. will also begin residential development in east Orange and east Tustin and will continue construction of new residential communities within the city of Irvine itself.

Minorities Southeast Asians Here for a Decade Orange County’s Southeast Asian immigrants--estimated at anywhere from 60,000 to 90,000--will celebrate, and perhaps grieve a little, over a decade away from their homeland.

“In 1985, it will be 10 years that we will be in United States,” said Mai Cong, president of the Vietnamese Community of Orange County Inc., a nonprofit organization. “There are a lot of plans in the community for activities to commemorate our leaving Vietnam, and living here, what have we accomplished.”

The community will celebrate its own new year, Tet, in February, with a traditional fair and festival, and the year ahead is likely to focus on speeding up reunification for families who still have relatives in Vietnam.

“We’re hoping that 1985 will be a better year for those who still have family members there,” said Mai Cong. “We’re hoping that with our concerted efforts, maybe they will be allowed to be resettled, either in the United States or in a third country.”

As in recent years, the Vietnamese community will focus efforts on registering new citizens as voters. Already, there are an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 Vietnamese voters in the county within both major parties.

For the Latino community, housing will continue to be the number one issue in 1985, followed by problems with unemployment and education, said Ed Flores, acting director of Concilio of Orange County, an advocacy organization.

Last year’s debate over the Simpson-Mazzoli immigration bill and the expected reemergence of some immigration legislation, simply worsened many of those problems, Flores said. “The Simpson-Mazzoli bill has generated a lack of sensitivity in this area, and because of the lack of sensitivity, there seems to be more of an outward trend to create displacement or to take advantage of people, whether it’s a government agency, or whether it be the homeowner who’s renting out housing.”

The Latino community will continue to battle any immigration reform measures viewed as discriminatory and will take on the housing issue countywide.

In Santa Ana, where a stepped-up code enforcement program has caused widespread concern over displacement of Latinos in inner-city areas, 1985 will see the implementation of a $100,000 assistance program to provide job training, food and shelter for families who need help.

City officials will also go into neighborhoods affected by the program, intended to crack down on substandard housing, “talking about the significance of such a program and how we feel it is a positive program,” said city spokeswoman Laurie Cottrell.

Law, Criminal Justice Sheriff-Coroner Issue Under Study A major issue on the law enforcement agenda for 1985 is the operation of the Sheriff-Coroner Department.

The Board of Supervisors has launched a study to determine whether there is a conflict-of-interest in operating the two departments jointly and whether it would be economical to separate them. The Orange County Grand Jury is participating in the study, which should be completed early in the year.

In the meantime, a case that first aroused much of the interest in the issue--in which three East Tustin brothers were involved in a shoot-out with sheriff’s deputies and the coroner conducted part of the investigation--will be resolved this year. A ruling on whether the three Slender family brothers will have to stand trial is set for early January.

Heading off the year on the criminal court calendar will be the Jan. 14 trial of Minh Van Lam, 21, charged with murder in the death of Cal State Fullerton professor Edward Lee Cooperman.

Another Cal State Fullerton professor, Richard L. Smith, will go to trial in March on charges that he murdered the ex-husband of his lover, a former student.

And one of the major criminal cases of recent years will be up for resolution when Randy Kraft, a Long Beach computer consultant, stands trial for the murders of 16 young men in Orange County.

In addition, two major trials of past years will be replayed in 1985.

The state Supreme Court has reversed the death-penalty murder conviction of Rodney James Alcala in the 1979 kidnap-slaying of a 12-year-old Huntington Beach girl, and a Superior Court judge has ordered a new trial for Gabriel Deluca, convicted last June of first-degree murder in the stabbing and bludgeoning death of a postal carrier.

Both trials will come up during 1985.

Energy, Environment Arizona’s Water Use Won’t Hurt in 1985 Water is the key environmental issue of 1985, the year when Arizona begins taking a share of Southern California’s Colorado River water supplies, but Orange County officials say it won’t be a big factor for overall water supplies, this year at least.

While Arizona will eventually tap into as much as 60% of the region’s Colorado River resources, the amount this year will only be about 10% to 20%. “The ground water supply’s in excellent shape right now, and the reservoirs are in excellent shape, so as far as actually feeling the pinch next year, we won’t,” said Jim Van Haum of the Municipal Water District of Orange County.

Nonetheless, Orange County’s legislative delegation and the Southern California Water Committee, headed by Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairman Harriett Wieder, will support legislation to ensure the delivery of added water supplies from Northern California, though similar legislation in past years has met with constant defeat.

On the other hand, the threat of too much water--by way of a potentially devastating flood on the Santa Ana River--will again be on the agenda in 1985, as California’s delegation again seeks congressional authorization of a $1.3-billion flood protection plan for the river. The authorization cleared only the House of Representatives during the last session.

Hazardous Waste Issue

Hazardous waste is likely to be one of the key environmental issues for the coming year, particularly with the closing of the region’s only hazardous waste landfill in West Covina late in November.

Barring unforeseen court injunctions or snafus, 1985 will be the year of the McColl dump cleanup. The first scoopful of the smelly World War II hazardous waste is scheduled to be unearthed in late January or early February, ending four years of talk, studies and delays. Preliminary work the installation of roads, fences, traffic signals and buildings--actually began on the site in October. But the crux of the cleanup--the excavation of 200,000 tons of acid waste from the production of high-octane aviation fuel--will take about 15 months.

Some 40 to 50 trucks a day, loaded with the malodorous material, will leave the site around the clock, headed for a licensed hazardous waste landfill.

The $21.5-million project, the largest excavation ever conducted by the state Department of Health Services, is being financed with an unprecedented $19.35-million grant from the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund for the cleanup of hazardous waste sites. (The remainder is being paid by the state.)

Meanwhile, beginning early this year, pre-treated wastes from Riverside County’s Stringfellow acid pits are scheduled to flow into the Orange County sewer system. County supervisors have vowed to fight the plan, but the state Department of Health Services says the wastes will be no more dangerous than normal industrial wastes currently flowing into the sewer lines.

The county will also be caught up in what seems to be a perennial environmental battle: the Bolsa Chica wetlands near Huntington Beach. The state Coastal Commission certified an ambitious development plan for the area in 1984, and supervisors must decide in the next few months whether to accept the commission’s modifications to the plan. If funding for the study comes through, it is also possible that federal officials will determine whether it is feasible to build a new 600- to 900-foot-wide boating channel through Bolsa Chica State Beach.

At one of the county’s other major wetlands preserves, Upper Newport Bay, a $3.5-million project to remove 700,000 cubic yards of sediment, critical to preservation of the bay, will be completed by the end of the year. If the necessary additional funding is approved, a $3.7-million project to dredge an additional 500,000 cubic yards of silt and construct a trapping basin in the bay will also be launched late in 1985.

Just to the south of Orange County, for the first time in the history of the troubled plant, all three reactors will be on line at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in February, producing power for a full 1.3 million customers.

Politics, Government Year Promises Busy Political Activity While it is not a general election year, 1985 promises to be a year of feverish political activity, as a number of Orange County politicians make decisions about seeking statewide office, potentially touching off a chain reaction among those interested in filling their seats.

Both county Supervisor Bruce Nestande and state Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim) have expressed interest in running for lieutenant governor; Nestande may form an exploratory committee as early as this month.

Meanwhile, Sen. Alan Cranston’s seat has attracted even more attention. Those who’ve expressed an interest so far include Republican Reps. William Dannemeyer of Fullerton and Daniel Lungren of Long Beach and state Sen. William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights), and the number of local officials interested in their seats is now at nearly a dozen.

The Republican Party is sure to take on a new face during 1985 with the retirement this month of county chairman Lois Lundberg after eight years at the helm. Longtime party activist Tom Fuentes is expected to succeed her.

The Democrats, meanwhile, will attempt to recover the ground they lost in the 1984 elections, when Republicans gained an even larger registration edge, Ronald Reagan took the county in a landslide and the county’s only Democratic congressman, Jerry Patterson of Santa Ana, was defeated by Robert K. Dornan.

As Dornan opens up an office in Washington--with a trip to Hanoi with a special committee on prisoners of war on his agenda for 1985--Patterson will join a Beverly Hills law firm, working out of its Washington and Costa Mesa offices.

Meanwhile, the year ahead is uncertain for the only remaining Democrat in the county’s state delegation, Assemblyman Richard Robinson of Garden Grove, who held off a challenge by Republican Richard Longshore by only 256 votes in November.

Robinson was dumped as Republican caucus chairman last May in a feud with Assembly Speaker Willie Brown and temporarily lost his membership on the powerful Judiciary Committee as well. Now, with the feud reportedly still simmering, it is still not certain whether Robinson will get the appointment to the Assembly Transportation Committee he is seeking.

Local elections scheduled during the year include a referendum Jan. 29 in Seal Beach on a proposal to build a four-story office complex with restaurants on the 18-acre Bixby Ranch and, in November, elections for every school district and special district in the county.

County government is in for a major overhaul with the Feb. 7 retirement of longtime County Administrative Officer Robert E. Thomas. A nationwide recruitment effort has been launched to find a successor to the county’s top administrative post. A new director for the county Health Care Agency, which oversees most of the county’s indigent and public health care programs, as well as medical services in the Orange County Jail, will also be hired this year.

Major issues on the county government agenda this year include a decision on how to deliver medical care to the poor, whether to allow a private company to operate the county landfills and--in a matter that could have far-reaching implications for all Orange County workers--a decision on whether to ban smoking in public and private workplaces.

Education Year Marks New Cycle for Schools The New Year dawns relatively quietly for the county’s public schools and community colleges, many of which were caught up in teacher contract disputes and debate over tuition during 1984.

The coming year marks the beginning of a new 30-year cycle, with many of the teachers and administrators who hired on to teach the baby-boom generation reaching early retirement age in 1985. The most recent survey of county teachers showed an average age of 43.

“I think this is probably one of the most interesting times that people in education are going to have,” said Fred Koch, assistant county schools superintendent. “We’re going to see a lot of teachers retiring in the next few years, and we’re going to see a whole new ballgame of people coming into the educational community.” County education officials are looking to the Legislature to adopt an assistance program for latchkey children, similar to a measure vetoed last year by Gov. George Deukmejian. “The whole area of child care has to be addressed this year. The legislators have no recourse in this regard. It has to be addressed, and I think it will be addressed,” Koch said.

University’s Anniversary

Cal State Fullerton will celebrate its 25th anniversary with a Silver Jubilee ball Jan. 26 at the Anaheim Hilton, a black-tie affair co-hosted by Irvine Co. President Nielsen and university President Jewel Plummer Cobb.

The university will break ground in late spring for a long-planned high-rise Hilton Inn and conference center on campus, a joint venture with the City of Fullerton and a private developer that university officials say will enhance their conference program and provide guest facilities for visitors to the campus.

Revenue from the facility is expected to eventually finance a youth sports complex at the university. The campus will also undertake a $1.4-million library remodeling project during 1985, converting the second and third floors to full library use for the first time.

At UC Irvine, new Chancellor Jack Peltason’s official inauguration is set for March 15, an event to include University of California regents and presidents and university officials from throughout the nation.

The university also expects to have about $75 million in building projects completed or under way during 1985. Those scheduled to open during the year include a university extension building, alumni house, the first phase of for-sale faculty housing (already sold out), the Beckman Laser Institute, the Nelson Research Facility and a privately funded magnetic resonance imaging facility at the university medical center in Orange.

The first endowed chairs in UCI’s history are scheduled to be filled during 1985 as well. All three--the Daniel G. Aldrich Jr. chair, the President’s Chair and the Grace Bell Chair in biological sciences--are each funded by $250,000 in private contributions earmarked for new research.

Arts and Leisure Disneyland Will Be 30 Years Old July 17 is Disneyland’s 30th birthday, and to celebrate the event, the park plans to give away $12 million in prizes in an effort to boost attendance to a record 12 million, a 22% increase over last year.

The year will also see dramatic changes at another amusement park, Lion Country Safari, where work is scheduled to begin on a project to convert the former wildlife park to a 13-acre water-oriented park that could include bumper boats, fast-moving canoe rides and swimming pools.

For the beach-oriented, Seal Beach has scheduled a Jan. 27 grand reopening for its municipal pier, two years and $2.3 million after the pier washed out during heavy winter storms. Huntington Beach city officials hope to reopen their pier-end cafe, lost during the same storms, by summer.

And at Mission San Juan Capistrano, the long-awaited parish church is scheduled to open in early March. The $5-million church is an attempted re-creation of the original mission church, destroyed during an earthquake in 1812, but it is 50% larger, with a seating capacity of 600.

The biggest item on the Orange County arts scene, the planned $65.5-million Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, won’t open until October of 1986, but the year ahead should see a great deal of debate over who will play the facility’s opening season. The outer framework of the 3,000-seat main theater will be completed in September.

The coming year will also see an $850,000 expansion of the Laguna Beach Museum of Art at the museum’s landmark home above Main Beach.