Cities Hope to Control El Toro Conversion : Aviation: To the chagrin of the county, coalition decides to win a role in base’s transformation to an airport.

Hoping to get the jump on the Orange County Board of Supervisors for control of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station’s facilities if the base closes, a coalition of six central Orange County cities decided Wednesday to apply for federal grants to plan conversion of the base into a commercial airport.

Pursuing a course that is expected to trigger a bruising political battle with the county over who will control the base--and reap the expected economic benefits--coalition members also said they will seek to recruit other area cities to join them in a regional airport authority to develop “mutually beneficial” plans.

Although the cities’ goals are in conflict with the county’s plan to retain absolute control of the base conversion process if El Toro closes, city officials conceded that the success of their effort largely depends on the county joining forces with their group.

“County (officials) may feel they have the right to control the whole process, from soup to nuts,” said Garden Grove Councilman Mark Leyes, that city’s representative on the airport authority. “I would argue that on its face, that’s not correct. It ought to be inclusionary. . . There’s plenty of action to go around. We do not intend to drop this.”

But Supervisor Thomas F. Riley disagreed. He maintained that if the base shuts down, the county would control the 4,700-acre site and would explore all development options, not just an airport. He said the planning effort envisaged by the cities was premature.

“I deplore this kind of action because the base has not closed, and the majority of Orange County is opposed to the base closing,” Riley said Wednesday. “Why don’t they wait for our guidance?”

But hoping to lead rather than follow, representatives from Anaheim, Garden Grove, Newport Beach and Stanton--members of the Orange County Cities Airport Authority--held an early morning meeting Wednesday to review a draft agreement establishing a new regional airport agency, which would give them the legal authority to develop and operate the facility. Representatives from Santa Ana and Yorba Linda, the two other airport authority members, were not present.

Included in the draft agreement are two provisions intended to garner countywide support--even from the south Orange County cities poised to fight a commercial airport at El Toro.

The first is a guarantee that an El Toro airport would abide by the same restrictions now governing operations at John Wayne Airport, including the same curfew on operations between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., as well as the noise restrictions imposed in a 1985 settlement of a court action brought by residents of Newport Beach.

Also, the fledgling authority promises that only the quietest aircraft would operate from El Toro.

Newport Beach Deputy City Manager Kenneth J. Delino said the plan would not cut into John Wayne’s business, because even with a second airport, passenger demand in the county would surpass capacity by the year 2010.

He also said that air cargo carriers that cannot fly into John Wayne Airport could be accommodated at El Toro, a statement that was endorsed by a spokesman for Federal Express.

Another part of the agreement calls for all member jurisdictions to share the operating costs and profits based on their share of the county’s population. According to that formula, the population of the unincorporated areas would entitle Orange County to a share of airport profits smaller than those of Santa Ana, Anaheim and Huntington Beach.

A Newport Beach study has projected $240 million in annual profits for a commercial airport at El Toro by the year 2010.

But in order for the cities’ plan to work, the county must be a participant, said attorney James E. Erickson, who drafted the regional airport authority agreement.

The county, however, has its own plans, and in a letter mailed last week to city officials in his district, Riley chastised the airport planning group.

“We firmly believe that discussion of specific re-use alternatives at this time is . . . potentially destructive,” Riley said, adding that the campaign was causing divisiveness among cities and could make the base conversion process “more contentious and less efficient than it should be.”

Orange County staffers who attended the cities’ meeting Wednesday also questioned the promises being made by Newport Beach officials.

John Wayne Airport spokeswoman Courtney Wiercioch said a 1990 federal law limits the ability of local officials to impose curfew and noise restrictions at the El Toro airport--a claim strongly disputed by airport supporters.

But Wiercioch also said that because the airport conversion could take several years, it is difficult to tell what the passenger demand will be or whether a restructured airline industry will go along with strict operating guidelines.

“I don’t think it’s realistic at this time to define what kind of an airport may or may not work there,” she said.