Chairman James Silva
Orange County Board of Supervisors
County Hall of Administration
10 Civic Center Plaza, Fifth Floor
Santa Ana, California 92701
Dear Chairman Silva:
Yesterday and today, the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority received
numerous phone calls from the media requesting reaction to the MCAS
El Toro
Master Development Program’s presentation of the CNEL Contours Report.
As
has been our practice in the past, our staff contacted the county’s
public
information staff this morning to advise them that we would be in
attendance so that we could hear the technical presentation and
make
informed comment to the media. We have extended the same courtesy
to
county staff for press conferences held by ETRPA.
However, this morning we were abruptly excluded from the technical
briefing
and told that if we had any questions we could contact Ms. Courtney
Wiercioch. The door was literally slammed in our face.
A press briefing,
held in the County Hall of Administration, is by definition a public
forum.
I can think of no defensible reason why an elected representative
of the
people should be excluded from such a meeting. Furthermore,
in the flurry
of press calls this afternoon we were unable to make any analysis
of the
technical documents. While I hope that our comments are accurate,
I would
have preferred a more substantive presentation from the county before
giving comment that will become part of the public record.
On behalf of the 29,000 citizens I represent as a Laguna Hills City
Council
Member, and the nearly one million citizens I represent as a board
member
of the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, I am affronted at the behavior
of
the county master development program staff. This is a violation
of good
public policy and a very real demonstration that the concerns, opinions
and
desires of the people most directly effected by the reuse of El
Toro are
purposely dismissed.
I hope that as Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, you will relay
to
county staff that despite our difference of opinion on the reuse
of El
Toro, they cannot deliberately exclude us from the process.
I hope that
this is an isolated incident and that in the future we can return
to an
atmosphere of civility, particularly at the staff level.
Sincerely,
L. Allan Songstad
Board Member, ETRPA
City Council, Laguna Hills
cc: Board of Supervisors
Jan Mittermeier
ETRPA Board of Directors
Paul Eckles
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