COUNTYWIDE : County Expected to Join Airport Panel
The County Board of Supervisors, ending a long holdout, is expected to vote today to join the regional planning organization that is searching for a place for a new Southland airport.
The board turned down an invitation to join the Southern California Regional Airport Authority years ago, but the supervisors commissioned their own study group to investigate Orange County airport proposals.
That group wrapped up its work last year, and when the regional authority offered a spot on its board to a local group that wants to bring commercial flights to the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, the supervisors reconsidered their holdout.
“It’s at a point where we’ve got to become involved,” Supervisor Thomas F. Riley said. “We’ve had some of the wrong signals, and it’s time we moved this thing along.”
Riley, a retired Marine Corps general and longtime opponent of opening El Toro to commercial flights, is in line to become the supervisors’ representative to the airport authority. If, as expected, the supervisors vote to join the authority, Riley will attend his first meeting this week.
In addition, an aide to Riley said the authority has lowered its annual fees from about $20,000 to $1,000. That helped draw the county back, the aide said.
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