Panel Backs Bid to Find New Airport Site : Commission Urges That Task Go to Consortium of Civic Groups

Grounded by politics since 1983, the search for a place to build a new regional airport took wing again Wednesday when the Orange County Airport Commission recommended that the county hire one of two competing community groups to find a site.

The airport commission voted unanimously to recommend giving the task to a consortium of organizations known as the Airport Site Coalition, whose members include the Orange County Chamber of Commerce, the Industrial League of Orange County, the Orange County Aviation Council and the Airport Working Group, one of the citizens’ organizations that has sued the county in the past over airport noise.

The commission rejected the search proposal of the Inter-County Airport Authority, a joint-powers agency formed 10 years ago by the cities of Anaheim, Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Stanton, and recently joined by Newport Beach.

“I have not been happier in a long time,” said Barbara Lichman of Newport Beach, a longtime member of the Airport Working Group who attended Wednesday night’s regularly scheduled commission meeting. “I’m just ecstatic.”

Eugene H. Moriarty, general manager of the Segerstrom Center and chairman of the Airport Site Coalition, predicted that the Board of Supervisors would go along with the commission’s recommendation when it takes up the matter in two weeks.

Anaheim City Councilman Irv Pickler and other officials with the Inter-County Airport Authority left the meeting immediately after the vote and were unavailable for comment late Wednesday.

If supervisors follow the commission’s recommendation, the county then would apply for a federal grant for airport planning on behalf of the coalition.

The coalition’s proposal calls for spending up to $485,000 on evaluating various sites and soliciting public participation. The ICAA had proposed spending $274,000 but would have focused on the preliminary site evaluations and delayed plans to build public support until later.

Commission members said both proposals were good but complained that the ICAA plan also would designate the group as the developer, builder and manager of any airport that would result from its efforts.

Commissioners said such ambition tainted the group’s proposal because the participants would seem to have already concluded that a site is available. Some panel members also complained that the ICAA had already entered into a financial agreement with a Texas bank for preliminary funding of its activities.

ICAA officials said the bank was willing to “front” up to $400,000 for site selection purposes in the hopes that it would eventually be hired to manage the sale of airport bonds. They defended the money as “venture capital.”

The commission previously had delayed the decision for several months to see if the Federal Aviation Administration would indicate which group it favored to receive the contract, which will be 80% funded by the agency.

Two weeks ago, FAA officials replied that it would be improper for the agency to take sides. But in a carefully worded letter, they implied that the Airport Site Coalition’s plan to build a public consensus more closely matched government requirements for public involvement, despite a cost advantage of more than $200,000 claimed by the Inter-County Airport Authority.

Supervisors had agreed to resume the search for a new airport site as part of its 1985 settlement of litigation between the county and Newport Beach over the county’s plans to expand the overcrowded facilities at John Wayne Airport.

The out-of-court settlement allows the county to build a new terminal and increase flights in exchange for a permanent limit on the number of passengers that an expanded facility will serve annually.

Limit on Passengers

The county agreed to limit the number of passengers to 8.4 million annually, down from 10.24 million originally planned. The same agreement limits John Wayne Airport to serving 4.75 million passengers annually until the new terminal is completed in 1991.

Between 1981 and 1983, the Board of Supervisors rejected recommendations from several groups and agencies for new airports at a wide range of locations, including the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, Camp Pendleton, Santiago Canyon and Chino. Shortly thereafter, the board twice adopted resolutions stating that there is no site in Orange County suitable for a new airport.

According to public policy researchers at UC Irvine, the effort to find a site fell victim, in part, to each supervisor’s unwillingness to accept a new airport in his or her district.