Panel’s Vote: Close El Toro Base : Military: Marine Corps’ operation to move to Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego. Closure recommendation still needs President’s approval.

With almost no hesitation, an independent federal commission voted Saturday to close the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station and move its 8,350 military and civilian jobs to Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego.

Voicing irritation with what had become an unending stream of alternate base-closing scenarios, as well as pleas for postponement from local congressmen, members of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission chose to disregard at least seven different options presented to them and instead voted in favor of the Pentagon’s original recommendation.

There was one slight revision involving the Tustin Marine Corps Helicopter Air Station in the motion that passed by a 6-0 vote. The Pentagon had originally proposed that Tustin’s 128 helicopters be transferred to both Miramar and Camp Pendleton, but the commission recommended that some also be moved to North Island Naval Air Station in San Diego.

“We certainly did everything possible (to save El Toro), and we have to feel good about the community effort on behalf of our Marines,” said Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), whose congressional district encompasses El Toro and who led the fight to keep the base open, arguing primarily that the Pentagon had underestimated the moving costs by $700 million to $1 billion.

“I have always thought of Orange County as Marine Corps country, semper fi land, and this really hurts,” said Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), whose district includes Tustin.

The independent panel’s recommendation now goes to President Clinton as part of an overall military base reduction plan that is subject to presidential approval and congressional ratification. Although two previous rounds of base closings resulted in no changes to the commission’s recommendations, Cox said he would send a letter to the President asking that the El Toro decision be reconsidered.

The vote was not a complete surprise, nor was it entirely disappointing to Orange County residents.

Looming in the wake of the commission’s decision is an even bigger political fight within Orange County over control of the 4,700-acre site that will be totally vacated by the Marines in four to six years.

A large and vocal group of South County residents, led by the Orange County Board of Supervisors, fought against tremendous odds to keep the base open. But their efforts were undermined to some extent by a maverick Newport Beach City Council that actively lobbied for closure of the base so that it could be converted into a commercial airport.

Lake Forest Councilwoman Marcia Rudolph, who heads the anti-airport group in south Orange County, called the decision “very disappointing from my standpoint as a taxpayer.” The commission “didn’t even discuss the possibility of keeping (El Toro) open,” she added.

Another base closing opponent, Laguna Hills Councilwoman Melody Carruth, was equally dissatisfied. “I’m deeply disappointed. They certainly ignored the new data, ignored the taxpayers’ concerns and ignored the environmental concerns (at Miramar),” she said.

But in Newport Beach, Mayor Clarence J. Turner was receiving congratulatory phone calls.

“I think it’s a positive thing for the county of Orange,” Turner said. “This is one of the few places where the effect of the closure will have a positive impact on the economy and not a negative one.”

This is a view that wasn’t shared by base workers like Maria Juan, 37, of Santa Ana, a working mother who landed a clerk job at El Toro three months ago. “This means I won’t have a job. I have three young children to support. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

State officials have also estimated that, in addition to the loss of an annual military and civilian payroll of $174.7 million, the closing will cost the county $60 million in military and defense contracts.

But a study commissioned by the Orange County Cities Airport Authority, led by Newport Beach, has estimated that a new airport could create more than 52,000 jobs and pump at least $4.3 billion into the regional economy by 2005.

The base’s future use, however, was not a factor considered by the commission during 3 1/2 months of study.

Nor did the commission’s discussion Saturday delve deeply into two key issues raised by Orange County’s anti-closing faction: the environmental constraints that would limit future expansion of Miramar’s facilities, and overlooked moving costs that had prompted some to label the proposed shutdown the “$1-billion blunder.”

In a news conference after the vote, commission Chairman Jim Courter said that in the debate over whether to close El Toro or Miramar, environmentalists had weighed in on the side of Miramar, because a continued military presence at the base would help protect the land from developers.

On the cost issue, the staff endorsed the Navy’s one-time moving cost estimate of $897.6 million for the entire realignment instead of the $1.75 billion estimated by community groups and local base commanders at El Toro. Assuming that cost estimate is correct, the Pentagon’s proposal was still the third most costly of the five plans discussed Saturday.

“The commissioners didn’t believe that (cost estimate), I know that,” Cox said after the vote.

During the hearing, two commissioners briefly showed some support for El Toro.

Commissioner Robert D. Stuart Jr. voiced some support for Orange County’s last-minute plea that the Southern California naval base realignment be delayed for two years, because there were still too many unanswered questions.

But this position was flatly rejected by Courter, who complained at great length, saying he was irritated that both sides had inundated the commission with a series of last-minute proposals.

“Every time I wake up, there’s another proposal,” the chairman said, adding that the last one reached the commission at 11 p.m. the previous evening.

“These decisions are not happy ones,” Courter said. “We are here to try to close facilities that clearly cannot be supported--all of them cannot be supported--and I think we ought to march ahead and close as many of these facilities as we possibly can.”

Also briefly defending El Toro was Commissioner Hansford T. Johnson, a retired Air Force general, who criticized the Navy for repeatedly claiming that the base should close because of encroachment by urban development. He argued that local government officials, at great political risk, had protected surrounding land from development to ensure the base’s mission would not be hurt.

“The fable that El Toro is encroached is not borne out by the facts,” Johnson said. “I can accept that we ought to move El Toro, but I cannot accept we ought to move it because the city has encroached El Toro.”

The staff said that while encroachment could become an issue if an expansion of the base’s mission was contemplated, it was not a current problem.

But Miramar’s defenders had argued that San Diego is the Navy’s future “megaport” and the base will play a key role in the training and deployment of troops. Unlike El Toro, which is restricted to daytime operations because of nearby residential communities, Miramar--with almost five times the acreage--can fly missions 24 hours a day, they added.

The cost estimates advanced by the Orange County delegation were inflated, according to a report prepared by Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham (R-San Diego).

By law, the commission is required to attach the greatest importance to a base’s “military value” in deciding which bases to keep open, and Miramar had scored the highest points.

The new base realignment is a complex set of movable parts centered around closing El Toro and keeping the Miramar base open.

Under the plan, 48 Marine jets and helicopters from Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, will move to Miramar, along with the 137 aircraft from El Toro. Some of the helicopters will be sent to Camp Pendleton.

In order to make room for the Marines, the Navy’s F/A-14 jets will move to the Lemoore Naval Air Station near Fresno. The Navy’s “Top Gun” school will move to Fallon Naval Air Station in Nevada. Overall, Miramar will end up with slightly more aircraft.

San Diego-area congressmen opposed the Pentagon plan because Lemoore is about 200 miles from the Pacific coast and from the rendezvous area with aircraft carriers for flight-training missions. For this reason, they tried to persuade the commission to combine the Marine and the Navy operations at Miramar.

The commission was inclined to agree with that suggestion but ultimately decided that the Navy could realign its own troops within the Defense Department’s recommendation.

Given that the panel could have closed Miramar instead of El Toro, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon) was pleased with the panel’s decision.

“We are grateful to see that the commission bought the argument that Miramar is indispensable,” Hunter said.

Dornan, who spoke to Courter late Friday and sent a letter to every commissioner, said he had hoped El Toro would receive a two-year reprieve.

“But the chief of naval operations, Admiral Frank B. Kelso, weighed in for Miramar because it’s close to the biggest Navy town in the world, San Diego,” Dornan said. “And there was no convincing them.”

Cpl. David Linder, 23, of Orange, who was visiting the base exchange shortly after the commission vote was taken, mused that “for a Marine, this is what we do. We pack up and go where we’re told. But I’m really going to miss this place.”

Times staff writers Matt Lait, Rene Lynch, Mark Platte and Lily Dizon contributed to this story.

* JOB WORRY: Fear, anger and uncertainty grip many of the base’s 2,100 civilian employees. A20

* LOOKING AHEAD: Neighbors wonder what’s in store for the land after the base closure is final. A20