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Remembering the Future of Orange Countys Great Park

Nathan Callahan

Published on February 28, 2002

"History has shown us that the Great Park of Orange County . . ."

The president of the United States stops in mid-sentence as a gust of wind unsettles the stage bunting, whooshes his hair and lifts the first lady's skirt. Overhead, a mini-tornado of dandelion puffs corkscrews around a GREAT PARK 50th ANNIVERSARY banner. As the wind settles, a confused blue-grey gnatcatcher roosts on the podium. President William A. Pilgrim smiles.

"As I was saying, history has shown us—and I'm sure my little friend here would agree—that this Great Park is the best thing that ever happened to Orange County."

The overflowing crowd hoots and whistles so loud it startles itself. From the twin spires above the Joan Irvine Smith Amphitheater, two hovering cameras zip back to position in a stand of valley oaks that quiver in the after breeze of a Fujicolor-perfect day. Stroking his graying beard before he Tai Chis an arm northward, Pilgrim continues.

"This park—this 4,500-acre dazzling emerald of nature and humanity—reflects the magnificent civic pride and spirit of cooperation that, during its creation, encompassed all of Orange County."

"Bullshit," an athletic, green-haired woman in a short skirt, knee-high all-terrain boots and a "Clone Me" halter top mutters under her breath.

"BULLSHIT!" she says again, louder, tugging at my arm.

"Doesn't anybody want to hear the truth? The dirt? The chthonian booty? Cooperation, my ass. Why doesn't anybody ask me about George Argyros?" she says, scanning the audience with Oliver Stone cynicism.

I ignore her. I already know the story. And so do you.

 

Back in 2001, George Argyros wanted to turn the land where the Great Park now stands into an international airport—and he had the power, money and political friends to do it. Never mind that Orange County was growing more slowly than any adjacent county and didn't need another airport. Never mind that the airport plan would have required shuttleloads of money to destroy and then rebuild the runways from the outdated military base that was once here. Never mind that jumbo jets and cargo planes would have taken off and landed 24/7 over thousands of homes and businesses. Never mind that air pollution, noise pollution and traffic congestion would have transformed a beautiful neighborhood into a chainlinked warehouse yard; that the then-newly remodeled John Wayne Airport—paid for with tax dollars—would have been forced to shut down; that the airline business was in such dire straits at the time that it had to be bailed out by the federal government. Never mind all that. Argyros wanted a shiny new international airport—and he wanted it ASAP. Short, stocky, bespectacled and publicly pleasant, Argyros—a FabergĂ© egg of a man—was the financial and, by default, spiritual guide to a group of Orange County business and political leaders who at the turn of the millennium were stuck in time. This group, regrettably, constituted the majority on the Board of Supervisors. Referred to as the Argynauts, their economic vision was based on the 20th-century business model of cargo and manufacturing. Unfortunately, they failed to realize that Orange County's economy wasn't. Even in the 1990s, Orange County's success was measured by 21st-century high-tech standards. The recession of the early 2000s didn't change that. A new airport in Orange County was simply a bad idea. Cargo planes don't move information. Runways attract baggage handlers, not entrepreneurs and Ph.D.s. But Argyros was in a hurry to have his outdated way. "Patience is for losers," he once said. A California real-estate magnate, CEO of a prominent and savagely diversified investment firm, financial chair of the California Republican Party, onetime owner of AirCal, and President George W. Bush's U.S. ambassador to Spain, the overeager Argyros was a well-connected man about town. Born in Detroit, raised in Pasadena and a respected alumnus of Orange County's Chapman University, he counted mid-20th-century President Richard Nixon and ex-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (yes, the war criminal) as his friends.

 

"Mr. Callahan. Mr. Callahan." I snap back to the park celebration. President Pilgrim is still speechifying about the beauty of it all.

"Don't you want to talk about Argyros?" the green-haired woman asks.

I ignore her and watch a flotilla of cumulus clouds spooling through the electric blue horizon. As if to mock me, one formation resembles George Argyros' profile.

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