Newport Decision on Irvine Suit Up in Air

The Newport Beach City Council continued meeting late Monday night with a decision about suing Irvine over potential civilian use of El Toro Marine Corps Air Station still pending.

Irvine recently rezoned the Marine base to make it more difficult for commercial aircraft to ever use the facility, which Newport Beach officials believe should relieve overcrowded conditions at John Wayne Airport, which is on Newport Beach’s northern border.

By 10 p.m., the Newport Beach council still had not gone into executive session to discuss the proposed lawsuit.

“We know that we need more commercial airports to supplement John Wayne, and we would be negligent not to have a real look at that,” Newport Beach Councilwoman Evelyn R. Hart said before Monday’s council meeting.

The El Toro Marine base is a possible site for commercial air traffic to relieve overcrowding at John Wayne Airport. However, the Irvine City Council voted Feb. 23 to amend the city’s general plan by changing the designation of the Marine base from “airport” to “military.” Irvine city officials said the action to rezone the base was just one step in their effort to prevent it from being used commercially. The second step involves annexing the Marine base, which is in unincorporated territory that is part of Irvine’s county-designated planning area, or so-called sphere of influence.

Irvine Mayor Larry Agran said earlier Monday that Newport Beach was attempting to transfer its airport-related problems onto Irvine without regard to the effect on that city.

“You cannot solve one city’s problems by dumping them on another city’s doorstep,” Agran said. “And that is what they (Newport City Council members) are trying to do here.”

“If you were to turn El Toro into a commercial jet facility, the terminal and resulting traffic would exacerbate the already near-gridlock conditions that exist in the Saddleback Valley,” Agran said. “It was never an option in our minds, and it should not be regarded as an option now.”

The Federal Aviation Administration is studying the feasibility of commercial flights at three military bases, including El Toro. The study is expected to be released March 31.

“The FAA has a mandate . . . to determine whether it is technically feasible (for El Toro to handle commercial flights),” Councilwoman Hart said. “I think we should find out what they have to say about it.”

“If joint use were quieter than the military alone--if it were safer than just the military--if the ground transportation and airspace work, then we owe it to the people of the city of Irvine to review the situation,” Hart said.

But Agran said Irvine officials would never tolerate a commercial airport in their city.

“No City Council in Irvine would ever permit the conversion of the airport at El Toro and still be representing the interests of our more than 100,000 residents,” Agran said. “El Toro is and always will be an exclusively military air base and is unsuitable for commercial jet traffic.”