Retired Irvine Company executive Richard “Dick” Sim has resigned from the board of the Great Park Corp., leaving in his wake a withering critique of the process for remaking the former El Toro Marine base.
“After 18 months it seems like a good time to end my public service,” Sim said in his letter of resignation, submitted Thursday. “It was an interesting experience.”
His letter gave no reason for his decision to step down.
People close to the nine-member board said Sim was frustrated with several policy decisions. His relations with board Chairman Larry Agran had been strained, they said.
Sim called on the board to expand its membership to include representatives of more OC cities, rein in “excessive” spending on public relations and hire an independent chief executive and other managers, rather than rely on city of Irvine staffers.
“Is it good public policy to have a huge countywide facility controlled for the next 100 years by a single city council that represents a small percent of the county’s population?” Sim wrote. “Think about the long-term governance and what happens when you are all off this board!”
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El Toro: voters approved Great Park in 2002 |
All five Irvine City Council members, including Agran, sit on the Great Park board. The other directors are developer James “Walkie” Ray, Laguna Canyon Foundation President Michael Pinto and Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido.
The board is set to choose a successor for Sim.
Sim’s letter does not mention Agran. But it clearly challenges the power of the former mayor who championed the Great Park over an airport at El Toro.
Asked if he was rebuking Agran, Sim sidestepped the question and repeated the need for the reforms outlined in his letter.
“It did catch everyone by surprise,” Agran said early Friday. “Dick made very significant contributions, the kind of things that aren’t generally visible to the public.”
Sim, for years the top developer and asset manager in Donald Bren’s Irvine Co., was one of two Great Park directors with a background in real estate. The other is Agran political ally Ray, a partner in a family-run Irvine business, Sanderson J. Ray Dev-elopment.
Developer Lennar Corp., which won the bidding to privately develop a portion of the former Marine base, plans 3,400 homes, industrial parks and shops.
The company expects to spend $1 billion for the land and on taxes.
Sim noted that the Great Park Corp. has 1,000 acres of public land to oversee and develop, and said it will collect $800 million to $1 billion from fees, taxes and financing.
He suggested the Great Park board be expanded to 15 members,the five Irvine council members, five citizens and five mayors.
“It seems more mayors of adjacent cities like Mission Viejo, Newport Beach, Tustin, Laguna Hills, Aliso Viejo, etc., should have a seat on this board to decide how these vast sums of money should be spent to benefit all the cities and almost 3 million citizens of Orange County,” Sim wrote.
Besides a chief executive, Sim said the board should hire a chief financial officer, general counsel and others.
Irvine Assistant City Manager Wally Kreutzen is the Great Park’s chief executive, an arrangement that Sim contends “could put the CEO and other city employees in a conflict position as this complex project gathers momentum and this board begins making many decisions.”
Sim also lamented the loss of “four key people” who comprised the Great Park task force for the past 10 years. They include outgoing City Manager Allison Hart and reassigned city planner Dan Jung.
“You can’t afford to have more people resign,” Sim said.
Sim also cited the board’s recent decision to spend $1 million on public relations and outreach, including $600,000 to pick a designer for the Great Park.
“If this trend continues, you will spend many millions of dollars prematurely to sell a product, the park, which will not exist for several years,” Sim wrote.
It would be better, Sim argued, to “use that money to build actual facilities.”
