Street Looking to Succeed Moorlach; Tunnel Gets Boost

Chriss Street has made a nice living as an investor dealing in distressed assets. Now he wants to take on Orange County. Street, 54, says he’s exiting the vulture capital game (he’ll maintain his Newport Beach money management business) so he’ll have more time to spend on philanthropy. And he’s planning to run for county treasurer in 2006, when his buddy, incumbent John Moorlach, is ex-pected to seek a supervisor’s seat. Street, a registered Republican, filed for the treasurer’s race in 1994, but decided to back Moorlach, a fellow critic of then-treasurer Bob Citron. The rest is history. “When you’ve been everywhere and done everything, home’s a real inviting place,” Street says of his revived interest in county office. He says he’d build on the practices established by Moorlach while adding some “safe” investment approaches of his own. He might be able to save taxpayers a few bucks on his travel: “I have 3.1 million frequent flier miles” Some proponents of a controversial traffic tunnel under Cleveland National Forest worry that a $3 million feasibility study by local transportation agencies is really intended to kill the project. But it may not matter. U.S. Rep. Chris Cox is seeing to it that the Army Corps of Engineers has ample federal funding to carry out its own feasibility study of a new OC-Riverside link,$2 million recently approved, another $14 million in the transportation bill expected to pass later this quarter. “I’m serious about getting a whole new level of analysis so we can make intelligent decisions,” Cox says. The Irvine Company has all but declared itself against a tunnel, but Cox says Donald Bren’s people have been receptive to the corps’ analysis “so long as it’s open to a wide variety of routes.” Which Cox says it is. In fact, he says the corps also will study routes that could move OCers to a future passenger airport at March Air Force Base … Churm Publishing/OC Metro’s Steve Churm, who’s pushing 50, has returned with 15 stitches on his chin after surfing a rock reef along Po’ipu, Kauai. The Irvine Co.’s Larry Thomas, who’s pushing a higher number, started the year by bungee jumping off of a 142-foot bridge outside Queenstown, New Zealand If you’ve got talent or money, Gloria Zigner wants you at Saturday’s CHOC Follies audition. Call (714) 532-8690 Grinches: On Dec. 28 a weather-delayed America West flight was diverted from John Wayne Airport to Ontario International. The pilot informed passengers that JWA refused a landing because it would be five minutes past the already extended 11:20 p.m. curfew. A JWA spokesman says there’s no log of the pilot requesting more time, which the control tower may or may not have granted. You’re reading about this because EE RR was among the drowsy, grouchy and rain-drenched holiday travelers whose bus didn’t arrive at John Wayne until the wee hours.