Voters to Have Say on El Toro Base as Airport : Conversion: County supervisors say they had little choice but to approve the initiative, since supporters had gathered more than enough signatures to force an election.

Setting up a potentially divisive political campaign, the Orange County Board of Supervisors grudgingly agreed Tuesday that voters be allowed to determine whether El Toro Marine Corps Air Station is converted to a commercial airport.

The supervisors said they had little choice but to place the controversial issue on the Nov. 8 ballot because supporters had gathered more than enough petition signatures--114,879--to force an election.

“Today, the airport initiative is the same type of ballot box planning that once worried so many of the people who are the initiative’s strongest supporters,” Board of Supervisors Chairman Thomas F. Riley said, referring to local business leaders who feared the slow-growth referendums of the 1980s. “It was wrong then and it is wrong now.”

All five supervisors approved the ballot order, but only Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder said the vote was necessary because of a public “perception” that voters have little faith in the current government leadership to decide El Toro’s future.

“The perception is that this issue has already been politicized,” Wieder said. “The current process needs to be replaced by the public. This is just not a land-use issue. This development is going to affect generations to come.”

The measure, called the Orange County/El Toro Economic Stimulus Initiative, has the support of a local business and political coalition that contends that a new airport would create more than 20,000 new jobs in Orange County and generate $170 million each year in revenue for local cities and the county.

If approved, the initiative would require the county to build a commercial airport on 2,000 acres of the 4,700-acre base, which is scheduled for closure by 1999.

For the past year, the air station has been at the center of heated political debate that has divided the county at an imaginary north/south border.

North County officials have joined business leaders to support the airport plan, while South County officials say such a project would require massive tax increases for construction and bring unwanted noise and traffic to their neighborhoods.

Tuesday, South County leaders gathered at the Hall of Administration to launch their first salvos of the campaign even before supervisors voted to place the issue on the ballot.

“This will require the biggest tax measure in the history of Orange County,” said Leisure World resident Bert Hack, representing a group called Taxpayers for Responsible Planning. “There are no adequate sewer, water or power systems to support such a thing.”

At minimum, Hack said, his group estimated that construction of a terminal, new runways and other public works improvements would cost $3 billion. Hack said the average resident’s contribution to such a project would amount to more than $8,000 in additional taxes and fees each year.

Yvonne Houssels, president of the Harbor Hills Homeowners Assn. in Newport Beach, told the board that if existing military runways are used for commercial aviation at El Toro, flight patterns would cross residential neighborhoods in Irvine, Corona del Mar and Newport Coast.

“I feel the initiative was very deceptive,” Houssels said, holding aloft a map of possible flight paths. “People signed this petition without knowledge of the full consequences.”

The initiative has considerable backing among business leaders, including developers George Argyros and Buck Johns.

Both men, among the most generous contributors to local political campaigns, played key roles in organizing the petition drive and have expressed little confidence in leaving development of the base to the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, the county agency formed to consider uses of the base. Agency members have pledged to give equal consideration to placing a commercial airport on the site.

The federal government had ultimate authority over how the base is used but will consider local plans.

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) said passage of the measure would be his “No. 1 priority between now and November.”

“People should know what horrible consequences will result from allowing a small minority of people to make the decisions on this issue,” Rohrabacher said. “This is too important to leave the people out.”

Anaheim City Councilman Irv Pickler, who has expressed support for the measure, said the board’s decision “places the issue right where it should be: before the voters.”

“I guess this is going to be labeled a north/south war, but I hope it doesn’t turn out that way,” Pickler said. “This is not a small-potatoes issue here. It’s proper that the electorate decide.”

Laying the foundation for the campaign ahead, Riley said the real “battle for public opinion will not be fought today but over the next five months.”

“For the record, while I’m voting yes today to place this measure on the ballot, when Nov. 8 arrives, my vote will be to protect the (El Toro planning board) process,”” Riley said. “And I’ll vote no.”

The other board members, with the exception of Wieder, reluctantly gave their approval, saying the development should be left with the existing planning agency.

“I’m certainly not going to be beating the drum for or against this initiative,” Supervisor Roger R. Stanton said. “It’s going to sink or swim based on the facts or lack of facts available. It’s a political campaign.”