County Gingerly Crafts El Toro Future-Use Panel : Planning: South County will have an edge in representation on board that will examine reuse options.

As the Orange County Board of Supervisors begins contemplating the fate of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station once the military leaves, all sides involved in the dispute over the proposed development of a commercial airport have agreed to meet at the negotiating table.

The board is expected to approve Tuesday the framework for such talks--an advisory committee that would study various reuse options. While the makeup of the committee is still being defined, it is expected to be slightly weighted in favor of the South County communities closest to the base that would be most affected by its closure.

At the outset of what is a multilayered bureaucratic process, the committee’s creation is being watched carefully by those on either side of the airport issue who have threatened to break away into their own legally binding “joint powers” authorities and develop their own plans if they do not like what the county is doing.

The pressure is on the Board of Supervisors to pacify those interests and discourage them from wresting away the county’s role as the lead planning agency. Until there is countywide agreement on who will guide the planning for El Toro’s redevelopment, the Department of Defense is not likely to release millions of dollars in grants designed to move the process along.

The base will close in two to four years.

In the proposed outline for the base planning process released Friday, the county staff stakes out the county’s position as the land-use authority which “would have the ultimate responsibility for submitting a reuse plan” to the Department of Defense.

“We want to break down the barriers and take the high road of a true consensus-building process,” said Jack Wagner, a county staff analyst assigned to the base closure issue.

Hoping to get off on the “right foot,” Wagner said, the county has invited the Defense Department’s Office of Economic Adjustment to take questions from the public during a workshop scheduled for the first week in August.

Wagner concedes that building a consensus will not be easy.

South County residents, fearing the noise that a regional commercial airport might bring, still reject the idea with the same fervor as those led by Newport Beach officials who believe it is the only redevelopment solution that can create jobs.

The committee is expected to have anywhere from nine to 15 members, made up of business, civic, and city leaders, with the number of city representatives tilted slightly in favor of the south Orange County cities that are opposed to the airport.

But Wagner said the county also expects to balance the vote on the panel with those representing a “regional perspective.”

“We’re hoping for people who are objective,” he said, noting that it’s difficult to find anyone with a neutral position on an issue that has divided the South County cities from those farther north.

Signs of compromise already have come from Newport Beach, one of six cities belonging to the Orange County Cities Airport Authority. Until recently, the group had threatened to form its own agency to develop a regional airport if the supervisors did not embark on an airport planning process.

But now, Newport Beach Mayor Clarence J. Turner said he is willing to wait and will go along with the county plan, as long as the regional airport gets fair consideration along with other reuse options.

The county’s plan “seems like it’s a step in the right direction,” Turner said. “It seems all-encompassing, representing the communities, plural.”

Lake Forest Councilwoman Marcia Rudolph said she and council members from other South County cities still have not given up the idea of a joint-powers authority that would eliminate the possibility of a commercial airport.

But given the divisiveness, she felt that it was important to “get with the program,” and try to find agreement.

“At least, it’s a starting point,” Rudolph said.