Court Validates Anti-Airport Initiative : El Toro: Measure S will remain on the ballot despite the fact that some signature collectors were not registered to vote in Orange County.

Orange County voters will get their say on Measure S, a ballot initiative that would block a proposed commercial airport at El Toro, even though some signatures supporting the measure may have been improperly collected, a judge ruled Friday.

Superior Court Judge Francisco F. Firmat acknowledged that some workers who circulated petitions to qualify Measure S for the March 1996 ballot were not registered to vote in Orange County, as required by county election law. But without further comment, Firmat declined to disqualify the measure.

Outside court, airport opponents savored their victory over those who support proposals to build a commercial airport at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

“We win,” said Bert Hack, co-chairman of Taxpayers for Responsible Planning, an activist group that led the drive to collect more than 100,000 signatures to qualify Measure S.

“It stays on the ballot,” said R. Zaiden Corrado, the group’s attorney.

The ruling was a setback for supporters of the rival Measure A, the well-financed effort to build a commercial airport when the military departs the El Toro base by 1999.

After the hearing, attorney Darryl R. Wold, who represents airport supporters, said he might appeal the judge’s ruling, which he called incongruous.

“Even though the signatures weren’t collected properly, it stays on the ballot?” he asked rhetorically. “It’s an incongruous result.”

The fate of the 4,700-acre El Toro base is one of the most significant--and controversial-- planning decisions facing Orange County.

Voters last year narrowly endorsed Measure A, whose backers billed a new airport as a way to generate jobs and boost Orange County’s economy. But airport opponents insist on a planning process that will consider their fears that a new airport will bring traffic, noise and plunging property values.

If approved by voters, Measure S would call for a meticulous planning process for the base.

Firmat’s ruling on Friday is expected to unleash another round of legal wrangling.

Airport backers insist that many of the Measure S signatures collected should be invalidated for a variety of reasons, including complaints that workers who circulated petitions in support of the initiative were not registered voters in Orange County.

The Measure S camp contends that workers need only be registered voters--not necessarily registered in Orange County. But even if those signatures were invalidated, they say, they would still have enough signatures to qualify.

The question is open to debate because not all the signatures collected in support of Measure S were validated by the Orange County registrar of voters, just enough to meet the minimum number of signatures needed with a comfortable margin. Also, those who collected the signatures were not scrutinized at the time.

Corrado said he thinks the judge believed that giving Orange County voters a say on Measure S was more important than the collection process.

“That’s how I’m interpreting it, that there’s a higher right here beyond the collection process,” he said.