Airport Foes Assail Expansion but Riley Cites Concessions

Newport Beach Mayor Philip Maurer charged Thursday that the Board of Supervisors “shafted” city residents in Wednesday’s vote to expand John Wayne Airport and raise the daily flight limit from 41 to 55.

“It’s a real sad day down here in Newport Beach,” said Maurer, a 33-year resident of Balboa Island. “There were a lot of people who came up to me after the board vote and congratulated me on what a great compromise we had supposedly obtained because the limit was put at 55 flights for five years.

“But I had to look at them as if they were crazy. The board gave us none of the things we were asking for. They didn’t do anything we wanted.”

“We got absolutely zero,” said Barbara Lichman, president of the 600-member Airport Working Group, a homeowners organization.

Lichman’s organization and Stop Polluting Our Newport, an environmental group, have scheduled a news conference for 10 a.m. this morning on the steps of the Newport Beach City Hall to protest Wednesday’s unanimous board vote to expand the airport.

Both organizations are expected to file lawsuits challenging the adequacy of the expansion project’s environmental impact report by late February.

Maurer, Lichman and other activists are frustrated that the city hired an advertising firm at a cost of about $30,000 and spent thousands of hours waging an impressive political campaign that fell short.

Residents under the airport’s flight path have fought the expansion for years, while business and industry have lobbied hard for additional airline service.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Thomas F. Riley, who represents Newport Beach, insisted Wednesday and again on Thursday that the supervisors’ vote reflected a mood of “mutual conciliation.”

Riley and other county officials argued that concessions to Newport Beach included:

- The board’s vote to build a new terminal to accommodate 55 flights instead of one that could handle 73 flights and 10.24 million passengers per year, and a delay until 1990 of any decision to expand to 73 flights and build an even larger terminal.

- The board’s rejection of the 62 daily departures recommended by county airport commissioners.

- A new review of alternate airport sites.

- A new 10 p.m. curfew for arriving jets.

However, Maurer, Lichman and Newport Beach Councilwoman Jackie Heather, among others, charged that:

- The board approved 73 flights per day after 1990 and rejected Newport Beach’s bid for a permanent daily limit of 55.

- The 55-flight limit for five years is what would have happened anyway, since the proposed expansion to 73 flights was to occur in stages, along with terminal construction.

- Newport Beach did not oppose 62 daily flights because the plan involved would have meant a more rapid conversion of the current jet fleet to quieter planes than the 55-flight plan.

- Supervisors rejected the city’s three-year deadline for “significant progress” on a new airport site.

“I just think that yesterday’s vote was extremely positive after so many years of fighting over this, and I differ with any analysis that says one group won and another lost,” Riley said Thursday.

But Lichman disagreed.

“The Board of Supervisors did what it had wanted to do all along. They voted for 73 flights after 1990. That’s what we were afraid of. That’s what we got.”