Panel Scheduled to Vote Today on Whether El Toro Base Will Close

Like a roller coaster ride with dizzying ups and downs, the only certainty about the future of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station was that, sooner or later, the ride would come to an end.

Today, the Orange County base learns whether it survived the sometimes grueling journey, when the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission votes on a Pentagon proposal to close El Toro and move the Marine units based there to the Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego.

The base was targeted for closure by the Pentagon last March as part of the Administration’s plan to cut defense spending in the post-Cold War era.

Linked somewhat to El Toro’s fate is that of the Tustin Marine Corps Air Station, which was placed on the closure list two years ago, but which could be kept open under some alternative base-closing scenarios that are also being considered today.

In the final days leading up to the vote, the independent commission has offered no public hints about how it might vote, maintaining that decisions are being reached one at a time, after members have discussed each facility in public.

But the general assessment of those who have closely followed the commission’s deliberations is that the panel will likely vote to keep open the San Diego base, if it is forced to choose between El Toro and Miramar.

“Miramar is too (politically) protected,” Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) said Friday, pointing to the strong support it has received from Adm. Frank B. Kelso, chief of naval operations. “But that does not necessarily mean El Toro is doomed. Our best hope is just to put off the El Toro vote until 1995.”

Whatever the commission decides, it will not be a widely popular decision in Orange County.

Most county residents--particularly those in South County nearest the base--have said in public opinion surveys that they want El Toro to remain open. Yet there are others, with the city of Newport Beach taking the lead, who have actively lobbied to get the base closed so it can be converted to a commercial airport.

When El Toro was first placed on the base-closure list, its demise seemed all but certain. Initially, the county’s congressional delegation remained silent or voiced qualified support for the Pentagon plan.

But the issue took a dramatic turn in April when Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) asserted that the Navy had seriously underestimated the cost of El Toro’s closing, and began pressing the Pentagon for a more detailed account of how it arrived at its cost figures.

Using numbers provided by local Marine commanders, Cox later argued before the commission that the Pentagon had neglected to take into consideration base housing and other construction requirements that would drive up the relocation cost to $1.2 billion--more than three times what the Pentagon had originally estimated.

Reacting to the cost concerns voiced by Cox and others, the commission added Miramar to the base closure list, and thereby put Orange County into head-to-head competition with San Diego.

Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham (R-San Diego) went before the commission to argue that not only should Miramar remain open and become home to the El Toro Marines, it should also keep the Naval aviation units already there, making Miramar a “megaport” for the Navy.

His pitch had an effect. After the last public hearing in California three weeks ago, two key commissioners hinted that they preferred Miramar over El Toro.

“It looks like (Cunningham) trumped us there,” Dornan said.

But the fight did not end there, and a report prepared by the commission staff last week showed that in 10 major categories involving air operations, not costs, El Toro and Miramar were almost equally valuable.

The commission staff reported, for example, that El Toro’s operations were limited by urban encroachment--too much development surrounding the 4,700-acre base, while Miramar had a relatively wide open 23,000-acre site. El Toro, however, has 1,740 acres that are available for future development, while Miramar’s expansion capability was rated “minimum” because much of the base’s land is environmentally sensitive.

Hedging their bets, Cox and Dornan shifted their strategy, arguing in recent weeks that the competition should not be between El Toro and Miramar, but between Miramar and Lemoore Naval Air Station in Central California, the base that was to receive Miramar’s jets under the Pentagon’s plan. If the Navy squadrons at Miramar remained in place, there would be no room at Miramar for El Toro’s jets.

With at least seven realignment options under consideration, Cox and Dornan began pressing the commission to postpone the decision until 1995 so that the costs and other base realignment options could be investigated.

During three days of voting this week, the commission has shown an independent streak by rejecting the Pentagon’s recommendations on several major bases. And that is what Cox is counting on.

Cox maintains that the “chronically soft” information from the Pentagon has been met with skepticism by the commissioners. “It has given them greater confidence in the wisdom of their own judgment,” he said.