Law: Postcards went out a day after a judge blocked official El Toro advocacy on a March initiative. Who knew what, and when, is disputed.

http://www.latimes.com/editions/orange/la-000000778jan04.story?coll=la%2Deditions%2Dorange

By H.G. REZA, TIMES STAFF WRITER
January 4, 2002

Thousands of postcards paid for by Orange County to promote an airport at El Toro were shipped to the post office one day after a judge ordered officials not to advocate on a crucial March initiative to decide the future of the closed Marine base.

Residents received the bulk mailer hailing the proposed airport as "a local taxpayer asset" and "a local economic benefit" this week. On Dec. 21, San Diego County Superior Court Judge Charles R. Hayes ordered Orange County to stop using public funds to promote an airport at El Toro or to oppose the initiative.

Dan Siwulec, owner of Service Mailers, the company hired to mail the postcards, said his firm trucked the pieces to post offices in Santa Ana, Anaheim and Long Beach on Dec. 21, the day of Hayes' ruling, and on Dec. 22. Siwulec said he was never told about the judge's order. County voters will cast ballots in March on whether to replace the county's plans to build a commercial airport at the base with zoning for an urban park and other development. For years, a three-member majority on the Board of Supervisors has favored an airport.

"Nobody told me about the injunction. Nobody said to hold [the mailers]. This is the first I've heard about this," said Siwulec in a telephone interview. He said he has been vacationing in Michigan since Dec. 15.

The mailer was designed by the Sacramento firm of Townsend, Besler, Usher & Raimundo. Jeff Raimundo said the office was notified by the county by fax Dec. 23 about the injunction. He said two-thirds of the mailers were taken to the post office Dec. 21 and the other third Dec. 22.

County officials said 681,000 postcards were mailed at a cost of $154,000, including production. Except for the postage, none of the vendors has been paid for working on the postcard, said El Toro program manager Gary Simon. He said it is up to the court to decide when the contractors will be paid.

Supervisor Todd Spitzer, an El Toro airport opponent, called the county's failure to stop the Dec. 22 shipment to the post office "a contempt of court."

"The county had a responsibility to immediately notify all vendors, especially if they knew they had a postcard scheduled to go in the mail," he said.

Spitzer said Simon had assured him Dec. 21 that there were no mailers or newsletters "in the pipeline."

"I called him and asked him, 'Do you have any mail in the pipeline?' He said, 'No,' " Spitzer said.

Simon, however, said that he was "very clear" with Spitzer about the pending mailer. "I told him that two days earlier we signed with the post office for [mailing out] the postcard."

But other county officials apparently weren't as clear on the mailer's status.

Michelle Emard, the county's spokeswoman on El Toro, initially said she had been told that the postcards were pulled before they were mailed. Later she said that she had "assumed" that they were never mailed because she had not received one at home.

In an e-mail Wednesday to a staff member in Spitzer's office, Christina Hiatt, public affairs manager for the county agency in charge of redeveloping El Toro and an aide to Simon, assured him that the postcards were "in the pipeline but never [were]released . . . due to the court hearing."

But in a follow-up e-mail less than three hours later, Hiatt said the mailer had gone out after all. "We tried to pull it, but it was already at the post office," she said.

On Thursday, Hiatt said she had only "assumed it had been pulled."

Kathleen Morris, an attorney for the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, an anti-airport coalition of South County cities, said the county counsel's office told her that an unsuccessful attempt was made to pull the postcards.

But Deputy County Counsel Don Rubin said he was "told the mailer was sent out before the court's injunction was handed down."

Simon said there was never an attempt to retrieve the postcards.

"We were conducting business as usual in our public information program until we received the court order," he said. "When the order was issued, I was very vocal that the postcard was already in the mail and could not be pulled."

According to Simon, the county signed an agreement with the post office Dec. 19 for the bulk mailing.

"We signed the agreement before the court order. When you sign that form, there's no turning back. It's the equivalent of dropping something in a mailbox. It can't be retrieved," he said.

But while the agreement was apparently signed Dec. 19, Siwulec said his company did not truck the mailer to the three post offices until Dec. 21 and Dec. 22.

Richard Jacobs, another attorney for airport opponents, said he may pursue legal action against the county if a review shows that officials violated the court's order.

"If this postcard had been in the works and in the post office when the injunction was finalized, that's one thing," he said. "But if it was knowingly and consciously sent out afterward, we will take enforcement steps."