February 2016 - Parks & Recreation - 52

G R E AT P A R K

Great Park's impressive sports park area, including several fields for multiple sports, is situated near the signature giant orange helium baloon,
seen here in the distance.

Balloon rides were free and thousands of local residents made the
400-foot ascent.
After taking control of Great Park
by rewriting its legal charter (relegating the nine-member board to an
advisory capacity), the Irvine City
Council decided to " activate " the
park with concerts, art shows, pumpkin festivals and similar public events.
But, the growing contrast between
lofty assurances of big things to come
and the dearth of significant construction began to generate criticism
in the press and from other elected
leaders. The park's many sole-source
contracts also raised eyebrows. Eventually, the Orange County Grand
Jury launched an investigation into
the Great Park project.
Great Park became entwined with
city politics, at once embraced by the
majority faction that had controlled
the city council for more than a decade and targeted by opposition candidates who focused on the continued
spending and unfulfilled promises.
In 2008, Great Park was caught
up in the national financial chaos - Lennar's key lender was Lehman Brothers, which went bankrupt
during the Great Recession. Lennar
50 Parks & Recreation

cut staff and slowed operations, later positioning development of Great
Park under the auspices of Five Point
Communities.
The potential for funding to build
out Great Park - estimated at more
than $1 billion - initially looked
positive because the city had placed
the entire project in its redevelopment zone. Over a 40-year lifetime,
redevelopment would generate hundreds of millions of dollars if all the
residential and commercial development was built. But, that bubble burst
in early 2011 when redevelopment
agencies were disbanded by California Governor Jerry Brown. As
the prospect of significant funding
evaporated, the long-term viability
of Great Park became a hot topic of
debate in the city and county (eventually, Irvine settled a lawsuit it filed
against the state that challenged the
demise of redevelopment, accepting
$227 million paid out over a decade).
City elections in 2012 brought in
a new majority of councilmembers
who demanded answers about Great
Park spending. They commissioned
two forensic audits, supplementing
an accounting firm with a law firm.
The city posted on its webpage the

| F E B R UA R Y 2 0 1 6 | W W W. N R PA . O R G

depositions of 23 former staff, consultants and others connected to the
project, that were conducted for the
audit. Testimony in the depositions
pulled back the curtains of Great
Park activities, detailing accusations
of political favoritism, power struggles between consultants and staff
and an atmosphere of apprehension
and uncertainty.
The 2014 elections seated a new
council that extended the scope of
the audit, raising the possibility that
legal action against some Great Park
consultants might follow.
In March 2015, the city released
the results of an audit of past Great
Park spending and management that
took more than two years to complete. The audit testimony painted a
picture of dysfunction, political intrigue and alleged cronyism, including multiple accusations that a political consultant with no engineering
or planning expertise became the
unofficial, self-appointed project
manager of Great Park. Especially
remarkable was a 27-page statement
from former Great Park CEO Mike
Ellzey that claimed his authority
was undercut by consultants and
elected officials. Ellzey, whose sixyear tenure as Great Park CEO was
a record (the first CEO lasted a little more than two years, the second
just four months, the third about 14
months), left the city in early 2015
for a new job as director of the nearby Nixon Library.
With so much testimony already
public, the release of the audit was
anticlimactic. More than 150 pages
long, it concluded that " hubris " and
an inability of Great Park leaders to
deal with financial and management
issues in a straightforward manner allowed the project to drift far from its
original path.
Some of the consultants who were
criticized in the audit have fought

February 2016 - Parks & Recreation

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