Briefly in the news

-- Paul Clinton

A three-judge appeals panel announced Friday it would decide by Feb.

20 whether the Great Park initiative could be placed on the March ballot.

The judges took final oral arguments before the San Diego Court of

Appeals.

South County backers of a central park at the closed El Toro Marine

Corps Air Station appealed an Orange County Superior Court judge’s July

31 ruling that the park initiative’s ballot title and summary were

misleading. Judge James Gray called them “affirmatively misleading.”

Organizers have collected the necessary signatures on the Orange

County Central Park and Nature Preserve Initiative.

On Aug. 7, the South County group promoting the initiative, known as

the Committee for Safe and Healthy Communities, appealed Gray’s ruling.