El Toro Airport Foes Seek to Nullify Measure A at Polls : Land use: The group, which hopes to qualify a ballot initiative, says voters were misled into believing a facility is necessary.

Hoping the county’s bankruptcy has changed public opinion, a grass-roots organization wants to give Orange County voters a chance to overturn the initiative they passed in November calling for a commercial airport at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

Taxpayers for Responsible Planning, a South County-based anti-airport group, will try to gather about 76,000 signatures required to place their initiative, which is designed to nullify last year’s Measure A, on the state presidential primary ballot next March.

The group, which filed papers with the Orange County registrar of voters office Monday, contends that voters were misled last fall by a heavily financed campaign about the potential economic benefits of a commercial airport at El Toro.

“It is our contention a commercial airport at El Toro is definitely not the highest and best use for the property,” Bill Kogerman, president of the group, said Tuesday. “The people of the county can overturn (Measure A) and force a total review of all viable options.”

The proposed ballot measure, to be called the El Toro Responsible Economic Development Initiative, would reopen studies of alternative uses for the air base, which is scheduled to close by 1999, and would require any future plan for an airport at El Toro to be put to a public vote.

In addition, the initiative would disband the current citizens advisory commission that Measure A mandated to help plan for an airport and would require full environmental review of any commercial development of the air base.

Buck Johns, a Newport Beach developer and a leader of pro-airport forces, contends that voters already stated their preference for an airport in November.

“The train has left that station,” he said Tuesday. The county’s subsequent bankruptcy woes, he said, simply underscore the importance of the airport’s potentially positive influence on the county’s economy.

“I think any economic stimuli we bring to the county is desperately needed,” Johns said.

But Kogerman believes the political climate has changed because of the county’s bankruptcy and because a newly publicized draft of a study by Leigh Fisher Associates foresees little growth in demand for a commercial airport at El Toro through the next three decades.

These factors, Kogerman contends, have undermined public confidence in the ability of the county to finance construction of a new airport through the issuing of bonds.

“Subsequent to the filing of bankruptcy, the electorate of this county is outraged and they now realize that the financial obligation of an airport would be theirs,” he said.

Kogerman said that although all options should be studied, he would favor continued military use of the El Toro base to house the helicopters scheduled to be transferred from the Tustin Marine base, which is also scheduled to close because of military cutbacks.

He acknowledged it will take political muscle to win passage of the proposed “counter-initiative.”

A campaign chest of at least $500,000 will be needed and sufficient signatures will have to be gathered by September, he said.

Kogerman said Taxpayers for Responsible Planning expects to get support of real estate interests and South County cities that have doggedly opposed the airport proposal.

Officials in Irvine and Lake Forest said Tuesday that those cities will review the initiative to decide if they will take a position on it.

Both cities already have said they intend to file a lawsuit challenging the legality of Measure A.

But, Kogerman said, “litigation is much too slow. We need to have a resolution and a positive step forward in the development of viable plans.”