Ruling will change El Toro campaign

Paul Clinton

NEWPORT BEACH -- City airport boosters say they will tone down their

anti-Great Park public relations campaign after this week’s court ruling

to allow a public vote on the El Toro airport alternative.

Now that the South County-promoted Orange County Central Park and

Nature Preserve Initiative will be on the March 5 ballot, city money

cannot be spent to lobby against the measure. State election laws

prohibit it.

“It can’t be as hard-hitting with the facts as if private money were

used,” Councilman Gary Proctor said about the city-financed campaign.

“You’ve got this fat target, but we’re stymied by those restrictions.”

On Wednesday, a three-judge appeals panel struck down an Orange County

Superior Court judge’s ruling that the initiative’s title and summary

were “affirmatively misleading.”

Since early March, groups fueled by a $3.67-million grant from Newport

Beach have been diligently working to dress down South County’s Great

Park plan in public.

In both mailings and television spots, a group calling itself the El

Toro Educational Alliance has criticized the economic viability of the

park, using the buzz phrase “Great Park, Great Tax.”

The alliance, made up of Newport Beach-based Airport Working Group and

Citizens for Jobs and the Economy, has broadcasted TV spots depicting a

bunny munching on money and released mailers deriding park supporters as

weasels.

The alliance also commissioned an economic study of the park plan that

reported it would cost $2.1 billion to develop and as much as $60 million

a year to operate.

A Newport Beach taxpayer and South County officials, in a lawsuit

filed July 27, accused the working group and Newport Beach of spending

public money improperly on the campaign.

Instead of that effort, South County spokeswoman Meg Waters urged the

city to spend its time and money on securing an extension to John Wayne

Airport’s flight restrictions rather than lobbying for an airport at the

closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

“For Newport Beach, what would be the best thing would be for them to

join with [South County] to get those restrictions permanently placed at

John Wayne and stop fighting their neighbors,” Waters said. “Taking those

hard-line positions isn’t going to serve their interests.”

The city is working closely with Orange County to hammer out a deal to

extend the restrictions, which will expire Dec. 31, 2005.

Bruce Nestande, a former county supervisor who also heads Citizens for

Jobs, defended the campaign and said it wouldn’t be softened.

“We have been very careful in our content to present a balanced

approach,” Nestande said. “Whatever mail we’ve put out is not going to

change.”

-- Paul Clinton covers the environment and John Wayne Airport. He may

be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail ato7

paul.clinton@latimes.comf7 .