Two Groups Differ on El Toro Fate, but Both Reject Airport

There are, at the Leisure World retirement community, two schools of thought about whether the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station should close.

One side--the vocal majority--has been leading the fight to keep the base open. The other side wants the gates closed forever.

But the two are not at war with each other. In fact, they have a common enemy: proposals to turn the facility into a commercial airport.

“We believe the base will close. Others believe they can save the base,” said Pat Nelson, who heads Concerned Citizens for Peace. “But we do want to work together in fighting the airport.”

Nelson’s group has asked the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission to close El Toro so that the land can be devoted “to serving human needs.”

For the 750-member group, the issue should not be a question of whether to sustain the military base or develop an airport, which it would deplore even more.

“We don’t think we have to make that choice,” Nelson said. “I think if we have enough people behind us, we do not have to make that choice.”

There should be a third option, Nelson added, to open the decision-making process to residents if the base is ordered closed this summer.

In existence for 12 years, the group has long opposed the base. Members favor downsizing the military, oppose large national defense budgets and are bothered by the occasional noise and pollution the jets create as they fly over the Leisure World community.

Were they to have their way, the base would be replaced by several job-creating enterprises, Nelson suggested.

For example, the child care center could be used by the neighboring communities, the school and other facilities could become job-training centers, and a transit center could be built for rail or other surface transportation, she said.

“We are not starry-eyed. We don’t think just of the homeless, although to use some of those buildings for the homeless would not be such a horrible idea,” Nelson said.

But Doyle Selden, a former member of Leisure World’s governing board and a leader of the move to save El Toro, said the political reality is that there probably will not be a “third choice.”

“They (Nelson’s group) want the base closed so that we can have housing for the poor, a jail or something beneficial. That’s not the way it’s going to happen,” Selden said.

But together, they hope to create a potent political force to block a commercial airport.

“We like to be together, we like them to see what we are doing so that we don’t have in our midst any contrary opinion,” Selden said.

A tireless campaigner for El Toro, Selden said he also feels that some of his arguments are beginning to take hold with those who have traditionally opposed the military base.

Pointing to his own experience, Selden argues that noise from military jets flying overhead lasts no more than 20 minutes a day. Airport proponents maintain that the commercial aircraft would be quieter than military jets.

“We want consensus,” Selden added. “If (El Toro) closes and there’s this likelihood of a commercial airport, we don’t want it.”

But for now, unexpected events have set aside the airport fight.

Both sides initially believed El Toro had little chance of survival. But base supporters were given new hope last week when the base closure commission agreed to give El Toro another look.

Largely because of questions raised by Selden and other El Toro advocates, the commission decided to add Miramar Naval Air Station to the list of bases that might be closed.

Ironically, one of the scenarios being considered by the commission would increase the number of jets and helicopters flying over El Toro.

“There’s a lot of unhappiness over the planes” because of the noise, Nelson said. “But (Selden) has been fighting this for a long time and I really do respect him. So we will just wait and see what happens.”