Plans for Base Link Mayor, Irvine Co.

The eight-year fight over El Toro has made for some strange alliances. Among them: retired Marine Col. Bill Kogerman of Laguna Hills and longtime peace activist Marion Pack of Fullerton, who joined to battle Orange County’s plans to build an airport at the closed Marine base.

The pro-airport quest also allied George Argyros, a billionaire Republican from Newport Beach, with Assemblyman Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana), who lobbied in Sacramento for an airport. Now, two former political foes in Irvine are engaged in their own quiet quest for a mutually beneficial redevelopment of El Toro.

The fate of the 4,700-acre base links the fortunes of Larry Agran, once and current mayor of Irvine, with the Irvine Co., which owns much of the land in Orange County’s core and created the city that bears its name.

Agran built his political career by attacking the monolithic influence of the powerful company, and accused its executives of working to oust him from office in 1990.

Now, Agran wants El Toro remade into a great urban park to crown his nearly three decades of slow-growth advocacy in Orange County. Company owner Donald Bren has never said publicly whether he believes that a park would fit with the company’s plans to build thousands of homes and 17 million square feet of commercial space around the base’s borders.

The alliance was sealed six months ago, when Irvine Co. Executive Vice President Joe Davis and Senior Vice President Dan Young set precedent by soliciting on company letterhead for a fund-raiser for Agran and City Council ally Chris Mears. The event, at an Irvine restaurant, raised $42,000, according to campaign reports filed with the city.

Recent events merged Agran’s and the company’s fortunes even more. A day after voters killed the county’s plans for an international airport at El Toro in favor of zoning for a park and limited development, the Navy announced that it intends to sell all or part of the base at auction. A final decision on how the Navy will dispose of the base will be announced April 23.

The Navy’s news shocked the city, which had hoped to get the land free. It also surprised officials at the Irvine Co., which hadn’t had to consider buying the property--or the prospect of another developer buying the land and building something that might compete with an adjacent development.

The Navy’s announcement also effectively shifted control of the base’s future from the county to Irvine. The city wants to annex the land and isn’t bound by the countywide vote--providing attractive flexibility for potential buyers. A majority of supervisors have said they favor Irvine taking responsibility for the base if it isn’t used for an airport.

The Irvine Co. has never shared information about its activities regarding El Toro and declined to do so last week. Company officials also have never stated support or opposition to the county’s airport plan or the park plan. The property holds special significance because it sits in the center of the former Irvine Ranch. The company gave the land to the U.S. government for the base, which opened in 1943.

Spokesman John Christensen downplayed the company’s relationship with Agran and Mears, who were elected two years ago along with a second Agran ally, Beth Krom. He said Irvine Co. executives Davis and Young “helped sell tickets” for the Sept. 20 fund-raiser but declined to comment on their use of company letterhead.

Agran said he views the Irvine Co. as a “kindred spirit” because of their mutual desire to see the base developed in a way that honors the March 5 countywide vote and reflects good planning. The city and the company want the Navy to hold off on any El Toro decision to give the city time to present a different development plan coordinated with the county and other South County cities, Agran said.

However, the company’s involvement may not be crucial, Agran said. “The company is not indispensable to the resolution of [El Toro],” he said. “I’d like to resolve it without the need of the company.” But whether it’s possible to get the land from the Navy without buying it, he said, “I can’t say because I don’t know.”

For some in Irvine, the friendliness between Agran and the Irvine Co. is worrisome, not only for El Toro but because the city is in the process of approving two huge company projects that will cap the city’s build-out.

Former Agran aide Stephen Smith said Agran might agree to greater development for the company as an incentive for cash to help build the park. Other concessions might be made if the company were to buy the property from the Navy and be in a position to turn over parkland to the city for free, Smith said.

“If Irvine succeeds in annexing the base, the City Council majority will control the base’s future,” said Smith, who parted with Agran two years ago after questioning his political ethics. “Can we trust their votes after this [fund-raiser]?”

Agran’s predecessor as mayor, Christina Shea, questioned his open alliance with the company, which she said accounts for about 70% of the business that comes before the city. Orange County voters deserve assurances that Agran wouldn’t trade more intense development at El Toro for a park that shrinks his original promise of a large park, university, museum, sports complex and nature preserve, she said.

“People should be asking if there are some trade-offs here,” said Shea, who opposes the Irvine Co.’s remaining projects as being too dense and creating twice as much traffic as an airport. She no longer holds a council seat.

The concerns about a conflict of interest are unfounded, Agran said, because the company shares the city’s vision for El Toro. In a vote of confidence, two Lake Forest councilmen this month urged county supervisors to let Irvine take over control of the base.

“The ‘Great Park’ is absolutely the best thing that happened to the slow-growth movement in Orange County,” Agran said. “We have seven square miles that otherwise would have been dominated by an airport or mixed uses, including an extraordinary concentration of commercialism and traffic.”

That shared vision is a recent phenomenon; Agran’s tussles with the company are legendary. In 1990, he labeled mayoral challenger Sally Ann Sheridan, who defeated Agran that year, a company “puppet,” saying residents were “uncomfortable with the monopoly power of the company, whether economic or political.” He accused the company of pressuring its contractors into making contributions--the same folks Shea said received Davis and Young’s solicitation letter last year.

In 1999, after his reelection to the Irvine council, Agran took on the company for what he called “whitewashing” potential airport hazards to prospective homebuyers. However, in the last two years he has encouraged company development around the base, including rezoning areas for new homes as a way of fostering potential airport foes.

Agran said his relationship with the company changed after Irvine’s historic 1988 open-space agreement. Approved by voters, it gave development rights to the company in exchange for preserving large swaths of open space. The company is now exercising those rights, he said. Its projects include transforming vast strawberry fields into a massive commercial and industrial park, and building the Northern Sphere, which the city hopes to annex for 12,350 homes and nearly 11 million square feet of commercial space.

“It has been an evolving relationship with the company,” he said. “I’m comfortable with where we are now.”

Some see Agran’s dealings with the company as the maturation of a 24-year relationship and an acknowledgment that his desired legacy--building a great urban park--would suffer without the involvement of Orange County’s largest landowner and deepest pocket.

“This is the ‘greater good’ argument,” said Mark Petracca, an Agran ally who heads UC Irvine’s political science department and serves as a city planning commissioner. “If the company can be an ally in achieving a greater good for the city--and that was the killing of the airport--then so be it.”

He said the company in recent years has been less interested in local and political squabbles--Agran and Mears are Democrats, while Bren is a major Republican donor--and more interested in ensuring that development of its properties occurs in an acceptable way.

“Larry has become much more pragmatic in seeing the company less as a useful whipping boy,” Petracca said. “That reflects a matured understanding of how to get what is obtainable given the company’s right to build. Given the airport, he’s seeing the company as a potentially very valuable ally.”

Development concessions are likely to happen on the base, he added, particularly if the company buys the property. “[But] no one’s going to care as long as there are no planes taking off.”

“Having a big park is nice, but there was no question what was going on” with Measure W, the park zoning initiative passed March 5, he said. “We were killing the airport.”