A Rush to Judgment on El Toro Airport : Measure A Doesn’t Allow Time to Weigh All Options

The future of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station represents what very likely is the last chance to plan for any really large piece of open space in Orange County. An assignment that important has to be approached with a certain respect for the size and importance of the undertaking.

Fortunately, what the county has going for it, or at least what it ought to have, is the luxury of some time to plan. Yet, remarkably, some influential movers and shakers are trying to get the county to forfeit this advantage and to force the issue before there has been proper time to consider all the alternatives.

If passed, Measure A would require an airport at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. That would close the book on all the other options even before they had been examined. The initiative is premature and should be rejected soundly.

Proponents say they are convinced that the process now in place to study possible uses for the base is rigged against an airport and cannot be trusted to work fairly. They want the voters to adopt a similarly cynical view, to dispense with the deliberative process. What they are really doing is asking Orange County residents to suspend belief in representative government.

It is true that there is deep division in Orange County over the airport idea. However, no official study for the future of the base will be credible or complete if it does not examine fully the idea of an airport along with whatever else may be feasible. The airport idea will have its day, and it does not need the initiative to make that happen.

What this unnecessary measure does is force the airport issue onto the front burner, when the very nature of the base-closing process encourages communities to examine alternatives carefully and completely before making decisions. Indeed, it is even possible that the planning process now in place might come up eventually with an even stronger case for an airport once all the studies have played out.

The initiative proponents are succumbing to nervousness. They want to fast-track this issue and preclude alternatives lest any one of them prove to have too much merit. By passing Measure A, the public would be cheated out of having due consideration given to using the base for any number of job-creating ventures.

An airport is one possible use for the base, to be sure. But it is another matter to take the argument to the lengths of the initiative proponents. They have said that there are no other available sites, and that the opportunity of El Toro is an opportunity not to be missed. The public must understand that the defeat of the initiative does not preclude El Toro from becoming an airport. If the public later decides that it doesn’t like the proposals that the people studying that base have come up with, there is always time for an airport referendum.

To do justice to the airport idea, like other possible options for El Toro, a much more thorough discussion is needed than the current hasty campaign allows.

Proponents are trying to create a false sense of urgency by suggesting that if we don’t act now, the opportunity will be lost forever. That is not the case. This is only the beginning of the planning process. There is plenty of time. Voters must reject this false sense of deadline. There is no need to heed the alarm of these Paul Reveres of the runways.

There may be a strong case to be made down the road for an airport, but the case for the initiative at this particular time is very weak. Don’t succumb to planning by ballot box. Reject the initiative in favor of a careful and deliberative process.