Mayday Calls Surround Radio Towers : Zoning: The landowners are appealing Orange County’s approval of three 306-foot-high transmitters on a forested mountaintop.

CLEVELAND NATIONAL FOREST — Larry Booth, a burly man given to blunt talk and dress cowboy boots, used to get fiery-eyed when he talked about his fight with county planners.

These days he has trouble holding back the tears when he describes the dream home he and his late wife planned to build high in the tranquil Santa Ana Mountains off Black Star Canyon Road near the Riverside County border.

Booth, 46, a city of Anaheim employee, and his wife Mea, who was 38 when she died of a heart attack three weeks ago, tied up most of their savings in the land they bought in May, 1988.

Four months later, unknown to them and neighboring landowners, the county’s zoning administrator approved plans for the construction of three 306-foot commercial radio towers 500 feet from where Booth planned to build his house. Then this spring, the Planning Commission OKd a 5,000-gallon underground fuel tank and an electric generator for the site.

The permit allows the transmitters, which will broadcast a new Spanish-language AM radio station, KSRT, to remain in position for at least eight years. Station owners say their Federal Communications Commission license for the last available radio frequency in Southern California is contingent upon finding a suitable antenna site, and the only one they can find is near Booth’s property.

But Booth, several other landowners and a contingent of environmentalists dispute that claim and charge that the decision to grant the permit was made in a climate of political favoritism. On Wednesday, they will appeal the permit to the Board of Supervisors.

“I’m continuing on with this because she wouldn’t want me to quit,” Booth said, referring to his late wife. “I lost my best friend, (but) I still love the area. The land is important to me. . . . All you hear now is the wind and the birds up there.”

Also expressing concerns about the tower will be a representative from Cleveland National Forest. Suzanne Olson, a spokeswoman for the Trabuco Ranger District, said forestry officials have no jurisdiction over county land but are worried about the tower’s potential impact--both visual and environmental--on surrounding federal property.

Carl Corey, who oversaw land-use in Cleveland National Forest until he retired this year, is blunter. “We would not allow that sort of thing to happen on national forest land,” Corey said, adding that the federal parkland is one of Southern California’s most pristine natural areas.

“Having a tower that’s over 300 feet with flashing lights and that is painted garish colors is definitely not natural,” he said.

County planning officials say that they sympathize with Booth but that he is a victim of circumstances and the county zoning ordinances that govern their decisions.

Booth was not notified of the hearing in September, 1988, at which the Orange County Broadcasting Co. was first granted a permit for the towers. County planners say that although he bought his property four months earlier, Booth’s name had not shown up on official tax rolls upon which the county relies for making notifications.

County officials say they tried to contact other landowners in the area, but the notices, they concede, might have been sent to outdated addresses. With no one objecting to the towers during several public hearings, Zoning Administrator Robert White said he had no basis to deny the permit.

White also notes that a majority of the Planning Commission reviewed and concurred with his decision when they approved a diesel fuel generator to power the station last May.

Planning Commissioner Thomas Moody was the only dissenter in the 3-1 vote. Commissioner Roger D. Slates abstained after environmentalists contended that he was absent too often from the hearings to vote.

As a concession to potential homeowners, White said, planning commissioners decided that the antennas would have to be moved after eight years if new homes were built on the adjoining land. Only one house now stands on neighboring property.

Opponents of the towers doubt that the antennas will ever be moved if construction occurs. What is more, they say, the county could face costly litigation if it eventually tries to force the towers off the land.

For his part, Daniel Villanueva Jr., president and part owner of Orange County Broadcasting Co., contends that his station will provide a service to the county’s 400,000 Latino residents.

At Planning Commission hearings last spring, Villanueva and other company representatives assured Booth that the station’s underground diesel fuel tank, which will be upstream from Booth’s property, will be well fortified. They also contend that the towers will be compatible with the surrounding mountain peaks.

“There’s all kinds of transmissions up there,” Villanueva said. “You name it, everybody’s up on that ridge.”

Forestry officials, however, restrict communication towers to five peaks so they are not spread out over the mountains. Further, they limit the height of antennas in the Trabuco area of Cleveland National Forest to 120 feet, thus avoiding the need for blinking red lights and brightly painted towers, which the Federal Aviation Administration requires for tall structures.

In addition, Olson said, new applicants are required to use propane gas rather than diesel fuel because it is less of a fire hazard and not as potentially hazardous to ground water.

Former Orange County Planning Commissioner Shirley Grindle, who has also taken up Booth’s cause, contends that the county can revoke the original permit for the towers because it was granted on the basis of misinformation.

A map submitted with the application showed an easement for the radio facility on Booth’s property, which he says he has never granted. In addition, the map does not show that a county road crosses the property precisely where the applicants propose to place guy wires for the towers.

Grindle contends that the applicants have received preferential treatment because they are prominent Latino businessmen whose support would be important to the future political aspirations of Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, whose district includes the mountainside.

Villanueva and his brother, James, who is also a part owner of Orange County Broadcasting, are the scions of Daniel Villanueva Sr., a wealthy and well-known Spanish-language television executive. The partnership also includes Fernando Niebla, a Republican political insider who owns Infotec Development Inc., the largest Latino business in Orange County.

Campaign disclosure records show that Infotec contributed $600 in money and $550 worth of help for a fund-raiser to Vasquez’s 1988 supervisorial campaign.

Villanueva denied that his group had received any special treatment. He acknowledged that the map he submitted with his application contained mistakes but blamed them on a consultant who prepared it and said he later corrected the errors.

“We went there and filled out an application like any Joe off the street,” Villanueva said. “To say that we are a power is grossly incorrect.”

Grindle said she met with Vasquez several weeks ago to seek his help but that the supervisor encouraged her to try to settle the dispute.

“I’m very disappointed in Gaddi. I’ve always considered him to be fair and able to see both sides,” Grindle said. “But the reasons he and his staff have given me for approving the project just don’t hold water. . . . I think Gaddi has lost sight of the terrible injustice that’s been done to the small guy.”

Vasquez said he has not decided yet whether he will vote for or against the towers, and he denied that he has played any role other than to listen to Grindle’s concerns. He acknowledged that he discussed the permit briefly with Niebla at a social function, but he said he never tried to influence the Planning Commission’s decision on the permit.