Today's LA Times features an article on the increased opposition from some OC environmentalists to the County of Orange accepting the gift of 20,000 acres of the Irvine Ranch.

"Where's the budget, where's the money, and where's the negotiating room?" said Jean Watt, president of Friends of Harbors, Beaches and Parks, at an Orange County Board of Supervisors meeting this fall where the donation was discussed.

That's an interesting twist. Whenever the costs of environmental regulations, lawsuits or obstructionism are pointed out, environmental object to putting a price on the environmental. Money is never an object when it comes to mitigating the environmental impacts of this or that development project.

Suddenly, however, we see budget hawks wheeling above the proposed land donation.

The more I listen to these objections, the more I am coming to believe adequate funding isn't the real objection, but the prospect of opening these lands to the public, coupled with a desire to use this process as leverage to squeeze money and concessions from The Irvine Company.

We are at the beginning of this process. The beginning. Postponing the transfer until we have every detail of managing every acres mapped out is letting the perfect be the enemy of the very good...taken to the nth degree.