Legal Battle Over Airport Initiative Postponed : Courts: Judge orders delay to give all sides time to produce additional documents in dispute about El Toro vote petitions.

Paid workers who once circulated petitions to support a commercial airport at the El Toro military base are not qualified to circulate a new round of petitions that would block the same project, activists claimed in court Thursday.

“What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,” said attorney R. Zaiden Corrado, who represents residents opposed to a new airport.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Francisco F. Firmat’s response drew chuckles in the courtroom. “They’ll be no sauce today,” the judge said as he postponed the hearing on the petition dispute until all sides produce additional legal documents.

At issue is the fate of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station and an interpretation of state election law guidelines for petition circulators.

Taxpayers for Responsible Planning collected more than 100,000 signatures in recent months to qualify the initiative known as Measure S for the March 1996 ballot. If passed by the voters, the measure would effectively nullify Measure A, which was narrowly passed by voters in November 1994 and calls for a commercial airport when the military departs the base in 1999.

Airport backers are now trying to keep Measure S off the ballot by taking the matter to court. They are arguing in part that many of the people who circulated petitions were unqualified because they were not registered voters, as required by law, according to attorney Darryl R. Wold, who represents supporters of a commercial airport.

Bill Kogerman, co-chairman for the citizen activists group, said the circulators were properly registered. Corrado noted in court that some of the same circulators were involved in the Measure A effort, and said that perhaps the validity of that vote should be subject to scrutiny.

“Their argument is going to turn around and bite them,” Kogerman said outside of court, adding that even if some signatures are disqualified, the groups collected thousands more than were needed.

Wold was unavailable for comment after the hearing.

Firmat tentatively scheduled a hearing for next Thursday.