Irvine Won’t Try to Annex El Toro Marine Air Base : Vote: The bid is seen as ‘a wasted effort’ because the county would block it. The city instead will join others in opposing closure.

The City Council decided Tuesday not to seek annexation of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station and instead voted to join other cities in opposing the base’s closure.

It was the second time the issue has come before the City Council. In 1991 the council favored annexation but that movement died after meeting political opposition from county government.

“It’s my judgment that to move forward and annex El Toro . . . would not be a successful endeavor,” City Councilman William A. (Art) Bloomer, former commanding general of the base, said Tuesday. “It would be a wasted effort because it would be opposed by the county.”

The council appointed a committee of city staff members and Bloomer to work with county officials in coming up with a strategy for keeping the military base open.

Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Les Aspin recommended that the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station be closed, along with 23 other military bases nationwide. If the federal government eventually sold the 4,700-acre base, and if Irvine annexed it, the city could decide its use.

Annexation would allow the council to zone the land to accommodate a commercial airport or, more likely, for homes and businesses.

Although closure of the base is not yet assured, the lobbying already has begun by groups with differing visions for a privately owned El Toro base. Some groups, including the 1,500-member Airport Working Group, want the base to become a commercial airport to relieve the jet noise over Newport Beach from John Wayne Airport.

Others, mostly cities around the El Toro flight path, hope to prevent any commercial use of the El Toro runways. They fear that jet noise, now from the occasional military fighter plane, would become an hourly annoyance.

Irvine officials have for years fought hand-in-hand with the military to keep civilian aircraft out of the base. Over the years, proposals have been made by individuals and companies, such as Federal Express, to allow commercial use of the base alongside the military use.

If the city did not annex the land, it could remain unincorporated county area.