Mittermeier Going or Not, Big Change in Plans Coming

The future of Orange County Executive Officer Jan Mittermeier is far from certain. But one thing is sure: The county is poised to dramatically shift the way it does business, especially when it comes to planning an El Toro airport.

“There’s going to be some reorganization,” Board of Supervisors Chairman Charles V. Smith confirmed.

To date, Mittermeier has juggled running the day-to-day business of county government with her role as the board’s point person on planning an airport at the retired El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. But a series of El Toro setbacks and public clashes between Mittermeier and her bosses have raised questions about how much longer the beleaguered official will hold on to her job.

On Thursday, as part of an action viewed by critics as further widening the gulf between her and the board, Mittermeier suspended all work on contracts, employees and vendors related to airport planning. That work stoppage will remain in effect until the supervisors take action Tuesday or a judge rules that the expenditures--said to total about $2.5 million--are appropriate.

The action was taken as the county scrambles to comply with Measure F, the initiative approved by 67% of county voters that, among other elements, prohibits planning for an airport at El Toro. In the days after the March 7 election, Mittermeier was criticized for not having a strategy in place to deal with the measure’s passage.

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One of the strongest signals that change is coming is that Smith and other board members are for the first time discussing whether to seize one of Mittermeier’s top responsibilities.

“If we have a commercial airport at El Toro, it’s going to take a full-time manager,” said Smith, an airport supporter.

Fellow board members, other county officials, community leaders and even airport foes agree that handling El Toro affairs is a full-time job.

Proponents say creating a separate job, and possibly a separate department overseeing airport planning, will help move the process along. Opponents hope reorganization will mean inclusion of South County into a planning process that they say has long ignored their concerns.

Supervisor Cynthia Coad, who supports an El Toro airport, said she wants to reach a consensus.

“My goal is to have Orange County unified on this, to see and hear everybody’s problems and see that their success is everyone’s success, but there’s been so much agitation,” Coad said. “I believe it can and has to be done.”

Some say the key to solving one of the most controversial planning decisions in county history is to simply slow down. To date, the airport planning process has been seen as a “speeding freight train,” fueled by the pro-airport majority on the Board of Supervisors. Measure F puts the brakes on, advocates say.

Airport planning has also been backward, said Jean Askham, president of the League of Women Voters: “Supervisors and the county started with the assumption they wanted an airport.”

If that majority viewpoint prevails, the county needs a leader who can persuade the board that “significant mitigation measures” are needed to get the airport back on track, said Ernie Schneider, a former county chief administrative officer.

Part of that includes making concessions to South County cities, Schneider said. Perhaps it’s time to also consider scaling back the county’s ambitious plans for an airport at El Toro, which would serve up to 24 million passengers a year.

“Isn’t it better to have an airport capable of having 15 million passengers a year than to keep planning for a 24-million-passenger airport that can’t happen?” he said.

There have been ample glimpses in recent years of a host of areas where supervisors have faulted their chief executive. They said she withheld information from board offices, made unpopular personnel moves and had a micromanagement style that prompted some elected officials to complain to supervisors during the public comment portion of weekly meetings.

Rancor over El Toro planning has dogged Mittermeier since she was appointed in 1995.

Pro-airport supervisors have complained about delays and missed deadlines for the project. Anti-airport supervisors charge Mittermeier with concealing public information and sabotaging their efforts to learn more about airport-related expenses.

As former director of John Wayne Airport, Mittermeier has been an unabashed cheerleader for an airport at the shuttered base. To support her position, she cited two voter endorsements of the proposed airport.

Then came the Safe and Healthy Communities initiative, Measure F. Its passage requires supervisors to get two-thirds voter approval for certain major projects, including airports, and jails and hazardous waste landfills.

It is currently being challenged in court by airport proponents. A court date has not yet been set for a hearing on the initiative’s validity.

Mittermeier most recently came under fire after it was discovered that she interviewed for a director’s position at Los Angeles International Airport. Supervisors hastily called a closed-door meeting, but emerged without taking any action against her.

In a statement, Mittermeier declined to “engage in media discussions” regarding her future.

“Recent events and subsequent media coverage have generated understandable speculation regarding my future as the CEO of the county,” she said. “I serve at the pleasure of the Board of Supervisors. I acknowledge and respect the terms of my employment. I accepted them in my original contract and I continue to accept them to this day.”

Tricia Harrigan, who regularly attends the board’s meetings representing the League of Women Voters, said both the CEO and board majority should be faulted for their single-minded goal of having an airport at El Toro. She adds that smoothing relations with the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, an anti-airport coalition representing South County cities, has not been high on the board’s agenda.

“The board makes policy and Mittermeier carries it out,” Harrigan said. “To bring ETRPA to the negotiation table, the board majority should have urged the CEO to work with those eight cities.”

At least one county observer, whose name has been raised as a possible Mittermeier successor, said that whoever is at the helm, the county must adopt an “extraordinary approach” to dealing with El Toro.

“It seems to me the overarching issue facing both the board and whoever they hire is restoring public confidence,” said Stan Oftelie, executive director of the Orange County Business Council, which supports an airport at El Toro.

“I don’t think you do it just by putting [El Toro] and John Wayne Airport together [in a department] reporting to the Board of Supervisors,” said Oftelie, former executive director of the Orange County Transportation Authority. “It should not be a foregone conclusion that the only thing possible and the only thing to be done at El Toro is an airport.”

Instead of just combining the airports, the board could consider creating an entire multi-agency department dealing with El Toro’s reuse, including the county parks department and public facilities agency, he said.

“The county’s problem all along has been that their focus is too narrow,” Oftelie said.