Orange County Voices : COMMENTARY ON MEASURE A : O.C. Can Benefit From El Toro Site--but Not With an Airport : Using the land to serve the transportation or entertainment industries would provide far more economic benefits.

Planning by ballot box is unwise. Advocacy groups distort evidence, overlook crucial effects and ignore alternatives. Measure A suffered all these defects. It narrowly passed last year and requires a commercial airport at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. Planning is based on flawed economic assumptions and mistakenly focused upon an airport while neglecting options that could produce more jobs with fewer undesirable side effects.

It is a myth that an airport at El Toro will create economic growth--a myth perpetuated by self-interested construction and engineering firms which would get the contracts. Recent studies of transportation projects have failed to identify significant, area-wide benefits to the economy. Rather, transportation improvements concentrate development.

Most of the development at any El Toro airport will be lured from elsewhere in the county. It will probably harm the economy of North County by encouraging businesses to relocate. The effect will be similar to building a freeway bypass around a city--business will abandon old sites to cluster near the transportation facility. Anaheim, Fullerton, Santa Ana and other northern cities will lose business to South County.

Whenever you take empty land--the Marines will vacate in 1999--and develop an airport, local employment will increase. It is a distortion, however, to describe these as “new” jobs. Most will result from redistribution rather than growth.

Consider the examples of Long Beach and Ontario airports. Both have competed with LAX for almost 30 years. Each has encouraged only a modest concentration of activity, and certainly, nothing like the 45,000 jobs that proponents of the El Toro airport have promised. They have failed to attract new, basic industries that stimulate growth in allied firms.

The El Toro base presents us with a major opportunity, one far broader than another airport. And one that should challenge us to examine a full range of alternatives. Federal regulations have established the methodology for such studies. It includes the analysis of existing facilities that could be used more efficiently, as well as the investigation of the beneficial and detrimental impacts for a range of possible uses, some of which may offer greater economic benefits than another airport.

As one possibility, use the site to develop industries that produce transportation equipment and components. This would encourage allied enterprises to locate nearby. For example, the clustering of electrical and computer component suppliers near manufacturing plants illustrates how areas evolve and prosper.

Transportation is an enormous market. It is the nation’s sixth-largest sector, accounting for 12% of gross domestic product. It is also a market where intelligent systems are urgently required to cope with increasing congestion and pollution. The California Council on Science and Technology forecast that 340,000 jobs could be created in California by 2010 by investing in transportation technology. Innovative developments for intelligent highways and new propulsion systems for autos and transit are already underway in Orange County and require space to manufacture and test equipment.

El Toro is ideally situated to be the home base for a cluster of manufacturing firms that could capitalize on local innovations. It is midway between Los Angeles and San Diego, and it adjoins the freeway and rail facilities that provide the spine of the corridor between those two cities.

To the north, on the Riverside Freeway, a fully automated toll road is about to open. This will be the nation’s first “intelligent” highway, and if successful could be expanded into a regional network of commuter lanes. This would entail a new approach to highway travel and require new control systems and guidance technology. It will offer new challenges to individuals and firms displaced by the downturn in the aerospace industry.

As another possibility, consider a center to serve the expanding needs of the entertainment industry. Southern California enjoys a comparative advantage in movie, television and recording enterprises. We have talented personnel and colleges that continue to train more, plus the bankers, lawyers and insurance specialists that understand industry requirements.

Entertainment is a growth industry, with jobs increasing by 61% during the last five years. And these are well-paid jobs--averaging $39,000 a year in the movie industry--that stimulate demand for homes, education and ancillary services. The international demand is also expanding. People in Asian nations are avid movie fans. As their incomes improve, they will increase the demand for entertainment products. As facilities elsewhere become crowded, Orange County should be promoting opportunities here. With the space available at the Marine Corps Base, we could be competitive with what Phoenix is now offering to entice the industry.

El Toro gives us the rare chance to do something beneficial for the development of Orange County. Instead of seizing this opportunity, though, our supervisors and their Citizens Advisory Council have been preoccupied with a single idea: one more airport. Their proposals result from flawed economic analysis, they do not comply with federal requirements nor help resolve disagreements within the community. If they continue on this course, we will not even get an airport in any reasonable period of time, because their proposals will be mired in legal conflicts.

There is a movement to repeal Measure A. Doing so would give us a chance to examine the full range of development alternatives, including an airport. Rejection of Measure A would give us a chance to produce a plan with far greater benefits and far less community conflict. Rejection of Measure A should be an easy decision.