Orange County to Hire El Toro Manager

Orange County could be looking to fill two of its most important government jobs in coming weeks: a permanent manager to plan the future of the sprawling former El Toro Marine base and a new chief executive.

County Executive Officer Jan Mittermeier warned supervisors two weeks ago that their intent to place El Toro planning under their direct control would violate her contract, forcing her to leave the job she’s held since 1995.

Supervisors nonetheless unanimously approved the new office Tuesday, with Supervisor Tom Wilson absent. They also selected an interim El Toro manager who sometimes clashed with Mittermeier before he left the county’s employ after more than a decade.

The move could be the final breach in an increasingly strained relationship between supervisors and Mittermeier, faulted for what a majority of the five-member board called a secretive and autocratic management style. Three attempts to fire her in the past two years have failed.

Mittermeier, who has been away from work for three weeks caring for her ailing mother, did not attend Tuesday’s meeting and didn’t return a call to her home. However, her attorney, Wylie Aitken, said he hoped her employment status would be resolved in the next 30 days.

Unless supervisors change their minds, Aitken said, the board’s action to establish a separate El Toro management position violates Mittermeier’s contract--effectively terminating her. That means she is eligible for a $170,000 severance package, he said. She earns $160,000 a year.

“We need to sit down and see where we’re at [and] find a mutually satisfactory way to end this relationship,” Aitken said.

Several supervisors said Tuesday that they hope Mittermeier will stay but acknowledged that the next step is up to her. They also said that the future of El Toro is too important for Mittermeier to handle while juggling other county duties.

“It would really be sad if she left the county,” said Supervisor Cynthia Coad, Mittermeier’s most vocal defender, who nonetheless voted to give the board direct control over El Toro. “I spoke to her recently and reiterated to her that I do believe we still need her expertise.”

Supervisors Tuesday named former John Wayne Airport director O.B. Schooley to take over El Toro planning duties on an interim basis, effective July 14. The board will conduct a nationwide search for a permanent manager.

Supervisor Todd Spitzer, a Mittermeier critic, said creation of the new office amounts to a fresh start for an impartial evaluation of both an airport at El Toro and a non-airport plan.

“We’ve made more progress with the board working together in the last 30 days than county staff made in the last two years,” Spitzer said. “Without Jan’s interference, the board has never operated more efficiently or more cohesively.”

Schooley’s style will be much more open and interactive with board members, Spitzer and others said. Whether he’ll change the county’s single-minded approach toward planning an airport at El Toro is doubtful, however, because voters mandated airport planning in 1994--a vote that hasn’t been overturned despite the passage in March of an anti-airport measure.