Fliers raise ire in city halls

Paul Clinton

NEWPORT-MESA -- El Toro advocates are hopping mad, again.

A series of mailers from the city of Irvine promoting a

park-and-museum complex for the closed El Toro Marine base has mobilized

Newport Beach’s three newest councilmen.

They’ve only been on the job three months, but John Heffernan, Steve

Bromberg and Gary Proctor are lobbying others in City Hall to endorse a

response mailer to put Newport Beach’s side of the story into its

residents’ mailboxes.

The council is scheduled to decide whether to spend money on its own

mailers in a closed session Tuesday. The move comes after the city of

Irvine sent out a five-question public opinion survey whose results “will

be made known to your elected representatives,” the mailer said.

“It’s very aggressive is what it is,” Heffernan said about the survey.

“They’re spending a lot of money getting their spin across.”

The mailers were sent out countywide in an effort to lobby support for

a non-aviation alternative for El Toro, Irvine Councilman Greg Smith

said.

The mailers are one piece of the city’s $2.5-million-a-year anti-El

Toro effort, Smith said. Earlier in the year, Irvine sent out a glossy

brochure lauding the benefits of its Great Park plan -- which calls for a

3,000-acre park, museum and other amenities.

Smith, who grew up in Corona del Mar, defended the brochures.

“I don’t think it’s spin,” Smith said. “As far as the Great Park goes,

there are concrete reasons for doing this that are in the county’s best

interest.”

Proctor and others have criticized the Great Park plan as economically

infeasible. As a practical matter, Irvine could not implement its park

plan unless its annexation of the 4,700-acre shuttered base is

successful.

Bromberg also was dismayed by the Irvine survey, which was accompanied

by a letter promising to “put an end to the county airport plan.” The

letter was signed by Dan Jung, executive director of Irvine’s

redevelopment agency.

“They’re like bomb-throwers,” Bromberg said. The mailers “are

guerrilla tactics passing as something warm and fuzzy.”

Costa Mesa Councilman Gary Monahan, a former mayor, also said he has

received the fliers. The survey came to his home.

“It’s an unscientific survey,” Monahan said. “Along with the Great

Park, I’ve got a bridge to go with it.”

But not all officials in Newport-Mesa are anxious for a tit-for-tat

response.

One of those, Costa Mesa Vice Mayor Linda Dixon, said the pro-airport

crowd can be just as guilty of spin-meistering as South County leaders.

“I don’t pay any attention to those [mailers] because I have found

that the information I get from both sides is inaccurate,” Dixon said.

“Sometimes I get the impression that when you deal with the pro-El Toro

group, their attitude is ‘my way or the highway.”’