Bloomer Opts to Live Behind Enemy Lines;
Wilson Zaps Davis
Sleeping with the enemy: With former El Toro commander Art Bloomer back from a gig in Washington, D.C. to head the pro-El Toro-airport Orange County Regional Airport Authority in Garden Grove, where has he chosen to live? In the anti-airport hotbed of Irvine, which he served as a councilman in the early ’90s. “I think Irvine has a lot of closet airport supporters,” says Bloomer Bloomer and Bill Kogerman, now on opposite sides of the El Toro battle, served together as Marine fighter pilots during the ’60s, at El Toro and in Vietnam. At El Toro, both had their mouths checked by Tom Coad, husband of pro-airport supervisor Cynthia Coad. The Coads were a young couple living on the base, where Tom was the dentist. “He put my bridge in,” Kogerman recalls of Coad’s work, required after some fisticuffs with another soldier. Bloomer remembers Kogerman for combat heroism: Rather than eject himself to safety from his burning Skyhawk jet after it was damaged by enemy fire, Kogerman made a dangerous landing in order to save his badly injured and incapacitated flying mate Pete Wilson declined the Insider’s invitation to grade Gray Davis’ handling of the energy crisis, saying it would not be constructive. But the former governor did make a pointed comment about his successor’s habit of referring to the energy crisis as an inherited problem: “We all inherit problems and it’s then our job to find solutions.” Btw, Wilson’s current employer, Beverly Hills VC firm Pacific Capital Group, is the piggy bank of billionaire Gary Winnick, ex-Michael Milken associate and founder of telecommunications giant Global Crossing Three experts did grade Davis’ handling of the energy crisis for members and guests of the OC Forum at the Irvine Marriott last week. Reagan energy secretary John Herrington, Cal State Fullerton prof Robert Michaels and Southern California Edison economist Gary Stern gave Davis an F, an F and a “D that could go to an F,” respectively, on policy. But Herrington and Stern both gave Davis a B for his political tactics. Herrington, raised on Balboa Island and now living in Walnut Creek, said Davis’ creation of “public power” fuels his presidential aspirations by playing to his party’s left wing; he said the governor will use up the state budget surplus in order to avert politically damaging rate hikes or blackouts. “The lighter side is this,” Herrington said of a spent surplus, “You’d never have gotten it back anyway” Yet another change at the Irvine Co.: Larry Sullivan, promoted to the No. 1 spot in land sales for the office group, replacing his longtime boss John Heil, who has retired Happy 10th anniversary to the Forum for Corporate Directors. Its Director of the Year dinner has sold out for the second straight year and faster than last. More than 400 are expected at the Newport Beach Four Seasons this Wednesday
