Disney May Wait on Bill Aiding Long Beach Resort

Reaching an impasse in closed-door negotiations with lawmakers, Walt Disney Co. executives on Friday appeared close to shelving legislation aimed at making it easier to build a $3-billion Long Beach theme resort.

Two senators who participated in the talks said Disney officials told them they expected to postpone consideration of the legislation until next January.

“We came a long way toward agreement, but we just couldn’t put the finishing touches on it,” said Sen. Henry Mello (D-Watsonville), who has opposed the measure.

Disney Senior Vice President Joe Shapiro said “it’s uncertain” what will happen to the measure, but left the door ajar to moving the bill through the Legislature this year.

Sources close to the negotiations maintained that, if hearings on the bill are delayed until next year, it still would not slow the construction timetable for the resort. Long Beach is engaged in intense competition with Anaheim to become home to a second Disney theme park in Southern California.

The legislation, by Sen. Ken Maddy (R-Fresno), would clarify the authority of the California Coastal Commission to allow Disney to fill about 250 acres of Queensway Bay in Long Beach for the resort, known as Port Disney, which would include a theme park, hotels, marina and a cruise ship terminal.

The measure has been stalled in the Senate Natural Resources and Wildlife Committee, where opponents have argued that state law does not allow landfill to be used for such recreational purposes as an amusement park. Disney has said that it is simply trying to clarify the commission’s authority.

The sticking point between Disney and members of the Natural Resources Committee has been how to lessen the environmental damage from the fill. Mello has pushed Disney to restore four acres of wetlands for every acre of oceanfront Disney fills. He had proposed requiring Disney and the city of Long Beach to spend up to $100 million on the environmental mitigation.

Sen. Dan McCorquodale (D-San Jose), chairman of the Natural Resources panel, said Disney was prepared to spend about $50 million and that he and Mello had scaled back their request to $75 million and a mitigation ratio of 3 to 1. McCorquodale confirmed that the negotiations became snagged over this issue.

Disney’s Shapiro declined to discuss the details of the talks but acknowledged, “We’re still trying to resolve the mitigation issue.”