DeVore withdraws two El Morro bills

Alicia Robinson

* EDITOR’S NOTE: This week, Daily Pilot government and politics

reporter Alicia Robinson is in Sacramento to provide a firsthand look

at Newport-Mesa’s elected representatives. She will be checking in on

freshmen Assemblymen Chuck DeVore and Van Tran and see how state Sen.

John Campbell is adjusting to life in the Senate. Pilot photographer

Kent Treptow is also on the assignment in the state capital.

SACRAMENTO -- Hoping to avoid a politically costly defeat, Newport

Beach Assemblyman Chuck DeVore has pulled the plug on two bills that

would have extended the leases of residents at the El Morro Village

mobile home park.

The controversial bills were scheduled for a hearing today in the

Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee. One bill would have

extended El Morro residents’ leases for 30 years in exchange for a

$50-million payment that would go toward the state’s projected $8

billion deficit. The other would have put leases on the mobile homes

up for public bid and earmarked the profits for the state parks

department, which has reported a $900-million backlog of parks

facilities and maintenance projects.

El Morro Village sits on state-owned, beachfront land at Crystal

Cove State Park that is slated to become public parkland and

campgrounds once the mobile home residents are gone.

DeVore has said he wrote the bills because it’s fiscally

irresponsible for the state to embark on the $13-million project to

redevelop El Morro while the state budget is bleeding red ink.

Opponents of the bills believe the land should be open to the

public. In their eyes, El Morro residents have gotten a sweet deal

for the last 25 years, paying below-market rents to live on valuable

coastal property that was purchased with taxpayers’ money. Some

criticize DeVore for accepting campaign contributions from the

residents and loans from the family of Roberto Brutocao, a board

member of the mobile home park’s management company and DeVore’s

campaign finance manager.

DeVore withdrew the bills Thursday because he could not get a

majority of the committee to vote for them, he said Monday.

“Losing a committee vote is something that I can’t afford right

now, because it makes a policy pronouncement on my idea and says it’s

dead,” he said.

The bills wouldn’t affect the state’s ongoing court proceedings to

evict residents. A handful of the park’s nearly 300 tenants agreed to

leave by April 1, but most are fighting in court to stay.

The assemblyman said he sees other options to keep El Morro open

and bring in more money for the state -- an order from Gov. Arnold

Schwarzenegger could do it, or a provision could be added to the

budget bill to continue collecting rents from residents.

“I’ve already talked to several [El Morro residents], and they

understand the tactical necessity of losing” this particular battle,

DeVore said.

El Morro Community Assn. President Jeanette Miller could not be

reached for comment Monday.

Others are likely to cheer DeVore’s withdrawal of the bills,

including former Assemblyman Gil Ferguson, who sent a letter last

week urging Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee members to vote

against the bills.

“My opposition to these people plundering public property goes

back several decades and is well-documented,” Ferguson wrote in a

statement sent to the Daily Pilot with the letter.

The Orange County Taxpayers Assn. also opposed the bills and said

the land should be opened to the public. DeVore’s goal of saving the

state money is “noble but misguided,” association President Reed

Royalty said when reached by phone Monday.

The state Parks and Recreation Department didn’t take a position

on the bills but planned all along to proceed with developing the

park, parks department spokesman Roy Stearns said.

“Now we can continue with our project,” he said. “Maybe that

removes a cloud to allow us to continue without further delays.”

Had either of the bills passed, Royalty thinks they might have

been an albatross around DeVore’s neck, because “he’d be known as the

guy that kept the public from using the taxpayers’ land.”

DeVore doesn’t see backing off on the bills as a total loss. If

the court starts evicting residents, he could bring an urgency bill

forward, he said.

Such a bill would probably look more like one state Sen. John

Campbell proposed but later withdrew when he was in the assembly.

That bill would have extended mobile home park residents’ leases

and devoted the money to renovations that are now underway on

cottages at Crystal Cove State Park. The project to refurbish 22

historic cottages there is over budget, but Stearns said he’s not

sure by how much. DeVore has pointed to the Crystal Cove cost

overruns as evidence of why it’s a bad idea to begin the new El Morro

project.

The $13-million for the El Morro project comes from a

voter-approved parks bond issue and has already been set aside in

state budget.

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers government and politics. She may be

reached at (714) 966-4626 or by e-mail at alicia.robinson

@latimes.com.