O.C. Military Base Outlook Brightens in Postwar Glow

With a triumphant postwar mood dominating the county, local officials predict that Orange County’s military installations will gain a powerful new political tool in trying to resolve an array of problems that have caused tensions with surrounding communities.

Now, says Tustin Mayor Richard B. Edgar, “people will be hard pressed to attack the military.”

The fighting in the Gulf is over and the local troops are on their way home. But still awaiting battle in Orange County are a host of thorny issues between the military and local communities that won’t go away as easily as Saddam Hussein.

The joint use of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station as a commercial airport, the roar of jets over surrounding neighborhoods, future development on base perimeters, affordable off-base housing for military families, chemical hazards and the future of Orange County’s military installations all appear likely to re-emerge for public debate in the afterglow of the war.

The difference now, military supporters and even some critics assert, is that officials at Orange County’s military installations at Tustin, El Toro, Los Alamitos and Seal Beach may enjoy greater leverage than ever before to triumph over their enemies--be they Newport Beach politicians or Irvine Co. planners.

Public skepticism about military competence, fueled by jokes about $436 hammers at the Pentagon, used to give critics ammunition for their attacks. But amid the current wave of postwar euphoria, the theory goes, public figures coming out against the military could be risking political suicide.

William A. (Art) Bloomer, an Irvine city councilman and former commanding general at the El Toro facility, said the “performance of the Marines from Tustin and El Toro, which was fairly substantial in the war, is going to strengthen the military’s position on these issues.”

Already, some officials involved in military-community issues say they have begun to see the difference.

County Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, a retired brigadier general in the Marine Corps, points to military housing for personnel at Orange County installations as one example of the change.

Military officials say it is so difficult for enlisted men and other personnel to pay the high costs of housing and apartment rentals in El Toro, Tustin and other parts of Orange County that many are forced to move out to surrounding counties, and most of them have second jobs. The issue rarely got much attention before the war.

But Riley said he recently met with several local developers who are interested in setting up “SROs”--single-room occupancy dwellings--for the military, similar to those now being tried for the homeless. And while he was unwilling to discuss details of the talks, the supervisor said he now sees real movement on the once-stagnant issue.

He credits the “rally-round-the-flag” attitude stirred by the war.

“I think (the military) has a great deal more leverage today to accomplish things,” Riley said in an interview. “You never know how long it’s going to last, but I can just see a difference when people come up and talk to me. Before, they wouldn’t know who the hell I was. But now they see I’m a retired Marine, and they look at you with more pride.”

“If I were on the base, and I had projects I wanted to get done right now,” Riley said, “this would be the time I’d do it.”

He is not alone in that view.

Irvine Mayor Sally Anne Sheridan, who opposes the use of the El Toro base for commercial purposes, called the facility “a very necessary base, and if the Persian Gulf issue didn’t prove it, nothing will.”

Melody Carruth, a councilwoman-elect from the newly incorporated city of Laguna Hills, says of those who would seek to use El Toro as a commercial airport: “I think that what we’ve seen in the last few months (in the Gulf) will take the wind out of their sails.”

Of course, those who have traditionally lined up against the military on some issues are not raising the white flag just yet, even amid rave reviews for the just-concluded military operation in the Gulf and the role of local troops in it.

Ken Delino, who wears the dual hats of an administrator for Newport Beach and executive director of the Orange County Cities Airport Authority, has been one of the most vocal proponents of looking at civilian/commercial use of the El Toro base as a means of alleviating the load at John Wayne Airport.

While opponents say a federal law has blocked joint use at the military base, some in Newport Beach are still pursuing the idea.

The success of the military in the Gulf has not deterred Delino.

Pointing to the tremendous growth of the area around El Toro, Delino said that at some time or another, “the Marines are going to have to leave El Toro. . . . How long can you keep a military base in the middle of suburbia?”

Larry Agran, who often criticized the roar of low-flying jets doing “touch-and-go” patterns and other maneuvers over Irvine when he was mayor there, said there is “always an attempt by some to say that (criticism of military operations) is somehow an attack on patriotism, but everyone knows that’s nonsense--this isn’t a battle with the military or its mission. . . .

“By this summer, when everybody’s out enjoying the sunshine and outdoors and there are some military missions that make conditions unpleasant or even frightening for children, there will be many complaints--and they’ll come from highly patriotic people,” he predicted.

The noise issue that Agran cites has a direct impact on future developments of the Irvine Co., which owns land to the east, west and north of the El Toro base.

Company officials are talking with Marine Corps officials about noise levels around the base’s perimeters--levels that could help determine whether landowners can build commercial developments that would put a further squeeze on the land that the base occupies.

One source familiar with the noise-land issue said that during the war, landowners around the base suspended their monitoring of Marine aircraft takeoffs and noise levels--data that could be used to secure perimeter land use in the future--for fear of a political backlash.

“It wasn’t a good time to be hassling the Marine Corps,” the source said. “It appeared a little unseemly.”

But C. Michael Stockstill, a spokesman for the Irvine Co., insisted that the company has “for a long period of time--well over 10 years--conducted regular monitoring of air operations, and we’ve made no change in these monitorings because of the war.”

Stockstill speaks about use-compatibility studies and the prospects, years down the road, for projects outside the confines of the base.

But Col. Jack Wagner, chief of staff at the base and a former community-liaison officer, doesn’t seem worried about these ideas or others often seen as threats by the military.

“I’m completely convinced we’ll have a lot more understanding and support from the civilian community after our stellar performance,” Wagner said. “We have a good relationship with the community. We do battle with the local developers and it’s a lot of fun.”