El Toro Logical Choice for Commercial Air Use, Maybe as Low-Security Prison

On Jan. 26, The Times devoted half a page of an otherwise good paper to a lot of bureaucratic bunk. I refer to Thomas Riley’s Commentary, “Cities Can Help Voice Local Aviation Needs at Regional Level.”

No mention is made in the article about the high-quality work that was done by the Orange County Cities Airport Authority that reviewed the Site Coalition’s three possible sites for an airport for Orange County. One of those sites was the Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro, and it was found to have excellent potential as a joint-use facility. The other sites suggested by the Site Coalition (Cristianitos and George AFB) have since been declared impractical for various environmental, financial or other reasons.

The Southern California Regional Airport Authority (SCRAA) seemed to be making good progress toward increasing the capacity of the region’s commercial airports, in spite of (or should I say “thanks to”?) being ignored by the Orange County Board of Supervisors. Now that the county has joined SCRAA, Supervisor Riley gets himself appointed the county’s representative. This appears to be merely a ploy to again divert the debate away from El Toro.

With only six lines Mr. Riley rules out El Toro. “ . . . Joint use is neither practical nor compatible. . . . “ Joint use is certainly possible, and it has been proven so in other places in the United States. Why can’t cargo planes, for instance, use El Toro and arrive and take off at hours when the base is closed?

Why the recent developments of Desert Storm demonstrated any particular importance of this base beats me. On the contrary, it proved that we no longer need the capacity of overkill and are now struggling with the impacts of closing a large number of military air bases. There is no need for a fighter base in the middle of a heavily populated area. The time has come to move the air base to George AFB (in Victorville) or to San Clemente Island, or someplace else.

It is true that there is a large investment already made in El Toro in the form of buildings and other facilities. Many of these would be ideal for the use as a lower security prison for the county. I would even suggest that we call the prison the Thomas F. Riley Prison! That way we could rename our airport to Orange County/Santa Ana Airport, and call the terminal building the John Wayne Terminal.

LARS DE JOUNGE, Corona del Mar