Commercial El Toro Airport Could Erode--or Enhance--Quality of Life

* Regarding the letter (Jan. 30) from the chairman of the Committee for El Toro Airport Tomorrow (CEAT):

It may be of interest, to those who might be impressed by Mr. (Eugene H.) Moriarty’s letter, to know that there are 11 people listed on CEAT’s letterhead as comprising its executive and advisory committees.

Of the 11, only one lives in Irvine; eight of the rest reside in areas remote from the Marine Corps air station at El Toro, in areas such as Garden Grove, Anaheim and Orange. One practices law in Irvine, but his residence area is not inferable for lack of a residential phone listing.

Mr. Moriarty apparently does not live anywhere near the airport he proposes to commercialize, nowhere in the area bounded by Corona del Mar, Silverado, Carbon Canyon and Seal Beach--either that or he has an unlisted residential telephone number.

Surely, should a commercial El Toro become a reality and turn out to be an uneconomical community nuisance, Mr. Moriarty and his ilk will be the first “to feel the pain” of those living near it.

ED BRISICK

Irvine

* It would be nice to see South County have a new golf course, recreation center, community park, major sporting complex or jail. Each of these ideas has merit. However, in today’s economic environment, we must make the best decision on how to use any of our existing assets. The decision on how to best use El Toro (Marine Corps Air Station) is no different.

The 4,700-acre air station has been developed extensively as an airport during the past 50 years at the cost of hundreds of millions of our tax dollars.

Now, as the owners of this property, are we taxpayers going to intentionally ignore the capital improvements we have made in this property, or will we attempt to build on the value of the property as it exists today?

I don’t enjoy listening to airport noise, but with that small distraction comes a very significant benefit: high-paying jobs! The continued development of the airport as a cargo facility can be the economic engine that will power South County into the 21st Century.

The Saddleback Valley has historically been a bedroom community with a small job base. Our children will be driven out of this community due to a lack of high-paying, high-tech jobs unless we make the correct decisions today that will attract and keep those jobs.

COREY J. FERGUSON

Mission Viejo