Irvine's "Great Park" Boondoggle

Irvine "Great Park" with remains of El Toro Marine Base in background

(Car not included)

The Orange County Register published an editorial May 25 on  a double-dipping contract on the part of the so-called "Great Park". I am posting the article along with a response by Mike Ellzey, who is CEO of the Great Park Corporation in today's Register.

http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/-301993--.html

First of all, I would have sworn that the CEO was a gopher. Outside of a hot-air balloon and street signs pointing to the Great Park-signs that take you nowhere-the so-called "Great Park" is a huge fallow field (site of the former El Toro Marine Base) that is inhabited by gophers. If you look under the weeds, you can detect the remains of the old runway.  Yet, an entire local political bureaucracy with a mysterious budget has sprouted up around this project led by Irvine boss Larry Agram and his musical chairs city council.

"Hey, you dang dirtchucks! Quit chuckin' my dirt!"

Now we learn that they turn around and hire one of their retirees with a double-dipping contract while "they recruit and train" his replacement.

Here is Mr Ellzey's response:

http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/park-302998-great-public.html

Whoa Nelly! As one who is retired from government and moved around quite a bit, there is a procedure that (competent) managers follow when people retire or are transferred. It is called planning ahead for their replacement. It works something like this: If you have an employee in France, for example, you need to know when that person is going to transfer back to the States. You advertise that vacancy well in advance. You select the applicant. If the applicant needs training, such as French language training, you build at least 6 months into that. You plan for the cost and procedure of transferring both employees.

When an employee announces that he or she is going to retire, you start the process of recruiting and training the replacement. You don't immediately offer that employee his/her pension plus a new salary while a replacement is being sought for and trained when the person retires.

This stinks.

The best thing we can do with that "Great Park" is plant grass and trees and leave it alone.

Or let it remain as a habitat for gophers.