Agran proved no angel in El Toro’s end

Last Sunday, the sound of Dave Henderson’s bat as he knocked the

Angels out of a World Series 16 years ago was finally obliterated

from my head forever.

From now on, no matter what happens, it’s downhill for the Angels,

and it seems that everything has already been written and felt to

express that satisfaction. So while we wait for the World Series,

I’ll move on to another winner, whose path to victory was as devious

as the Angels’ path these past few weeks was straightforward.

OK, Larry Agran, I give up. You win. You and that crew you’ve

assembled in Irvine make Machiavelli look like a carnival grifter. Or

the Enron crooks like common purse snatchers.

This latest move of yours to let the taxpayers in Bakersfield and

Fresno foot the bill for that imaginary Great Park of yours is sheer

genius. Our hired guns can’t even come close. Never could. I’ve

always admired professionals who are good at their work, and I’ve got

to say that as a superb confidence man, you’re in a class by

yourself.

In case anyone reading this doesn’t know what I’m talking about, I

call your attention to Proposition 51 in the upcoming state election.

Proposition 51 is called the “Transportation, Distribution of

Existing Motor Vehicle Sales and Use Tax Initiative Statues.” It

would take about 4.5% of state sales tax revenue and divert it to a

trust fund for “transportation, environmental and safety programs.”

And guess what is tucked into the free lunch line under this

umbrella? You got it. The Great Park.

Those of you who remember the mailing pieces that came out of

Irvine the past couple of years extolling the Great Park might also

recall that one of its selling points was a free ride for the

taxpayers.

When Agran was reminded of this the other day by a Los Angeles

Times reporter, he responded: “We never said that to create the Great

Park will cost no money. It’s only some of the more sinister people

in Newport Beach who are asserting we said that.”

Unhappily, our sin was not being sinister enough. We were

out-sinistered as well as out-smarted by a considerable margin.

I grazed through some of the fliers I saved and found Agran

telling The Times that a study commissioned by the city of Irvine

provided a “thorough analysis that shows the park plan would pay for

itself.” He also said that the Great Park “will generate more than

$25 million annually in net revenue ... with ample resources to

design and build the park in phases and operate it.”

He was quoted in the Orange County Register as saying that a plan

to create an endowment for the park out of revenue from leasing parts

of the existing base “creates an opportunity to build the great park

at no taxpayer expense.” And the sinister beat goes on.

The backers of Proposition 51 picked up a page from Agran’s book

by offering it up as found money because these goodies come from

“existing funds” that don’t require new taxes.

The “existing funds” have been siphoned off the state’s general

fund at the expense of education, health and social services that

would have to be diminished or eliminated to build Agran’s park --

the one that was offered up at no taxpayer expense. Opposing

Proposition 51 is the only time I can recall seeing the League of

Women Voters in bed with the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn.

Throughout this charade, Agran’s genius has been in packaging.

When a “Yes” vote favored an El Toro airport, he packaged it with

jails and toxic waste dumps. When a “No” vote favored El Toro, he

packaged it with a Great Park. So who would vote for waste dumps or

against a park? Not enough people, that’s who -- especially when they

were also being told how this airport would destroy everything they

held dear in their current lives.

Meanwhile, what were our guys doing with the Newport Beach money?

They were running scared from lawsuits with “educational” fliers, a

restriction that didn’t seem to cramp the fiction style in Irvine.

I’ve been giving some thought to packaging we might have offered

in response to the jails and dumps and great parks, looking for

offerings almost certain to be embraced by voters. Tax reduction, for

example. Who wouldn’t vote for that? So we might have created a

commission to study this matter, making sure beforehand -- of course

-- that it would come to the conclusions we wanted.

Armed with this research, we could then offer a measure that would

pair an El Toro Airport with a reduction in county taxes based on

income generated by the airport. All baloney, of course. An offering

on which we couldn’t possibly deliver.

But we’d worry about that after the election. Oh yes. And we’d

also convince the residents of Garden Grove and Huntington Beach that

their lives would be destroyed by the certain expansion of John Wayne

Airport if they didn’t turn out to vote for El Toro -- which would be

a lot closer to the truth than the discomfort in Mission Viejo if the

airport did win.

Maybe I’m giving too much credit to Agran. Maybe the ideas for

dumps and parks came from some of his half-million-dollar

consultants. But Agran was always the front man, the guy manipulating

the shells while we tried to guess which one the airport was under.

And if some of us were suspicious, it apparently never occurred to

the folks who didn’t bother to vote on Measure W that the airport

wasn’t under any of them.

So when they pass out the Enron statues for the Best Performance

in Creative Deception, I’ve got to be pulling for Agran. If he wants

to bring someone else up to the platform with him, so be it. But just

keep that picture in mind when you vote on Proposition 51. “No” means

“No” -- on both the Proposition and Agran’s end run.

Meanwhile, go Angels!

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.