The Fight Over Flight in El Toro

There has been a lot of heat stirred up by the South County proponents of the measure to be voted on in March to reverse a previously passed measure to convert El Toro into a commercial airport.

Yet none of these anti-airport people has come up with a single proposed solution to the problem that will be faced by the county air travelers when John Wayne Airport reaches capacity next year.

Are they willing to drive to LAX or Long Beach to catch a plane? Do they expect the county to break its contract with Newport Beach and add more flights? Do they want to fly bigger planes out of John Wayne? The strength of John Wayne’s single runway, and its short 5,000-foot length, militate against this unfair solution.

Or do they plan to build a second airport on top of Old Saddleback?

If anyone in South County has a solution, let them propose it before they ask Orange County voters to buy a pig in a poke.

STUART WILLIAMS

Newport Beach

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Regarding “First Formal Debate on Airport Measure Turns Into a Dogfight” (Feb. 7), the proponents of an airport at the El Toro site are continuing to confuse the voters with wild accusations and unsupported charges.

In contrast, the supporters of Measure S merely want the voters to decide if the possibilities for the site are to be thoroughly considered, or if they are simply going to blindly accept an airport.

Those against Measure S, and in favor of immediate acceptance of an airport, claim that the measure puts “insurmountable obstacles in the way.”

When the airport supporters are composed of Newport Beach residents hoping to rid themselves of some bothersome noise and benefiting businessmen and contractors, and the opponents are unaffected scientists and transportation experts, who are we as citizens and voters to believe? The answer is rather obvious.

BETTY J. GOSTIN

Costa Mesa

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Certain well-connected special interest groups want to locate an international commercial airport at El Toro. Measure A was the first step toward that end. The type of problem created by making the El Toro base a commercial airport is typical of a conflict that has been a part of society since antiquity. We experience it with conflicting water rights, grazing rights, nuclear waste dump sites, prison sites and other development or public use with an imbalance in the cost and benefit among the people affected. The way to break out of this cycle, to my way of thinking, is through intelligent, fair and far-reaching planning for the collective benefit based on cooperation rather than the advantage of special interests.

An international airport at El Toro would reduce the quality of life for thousands of residences over a wide area of south Orange County. Despite the well-funded studies and “infomercials” on cable TV that state the noise level would impact a small number of people, we know otherwise. What is really happening is that the Newport Beach area is exporting their noise south, as well as creating an opportunity-generating engine for the benefit of the special interests poised to take advantage of it.

The investment in the current John Wayne Airport, paid for by us all, has not even begun to pay back. Now, another airport site becomes available, one that could support LAX-levels of traffic, and the short-sighted political leadership and special interests are all salivating at the possibilities.

The lack of coordinated and far-reaching city and community planning and development is astounding. Up pops an available site and the dim-witted city planners, cut from the same cloth that gave us a bankruptcy, goaded on by special interests and Newport area residents, slowly begin to “plan” for another airport. The computer models, the lobbyists, the public relations experts, the developers, the contractors, the bond issuers and financiers are all ready, chomping at the bit. But there is one major problem: The residents who live all around the site don’t want it.

We must demand that the city and county intelligently plan another alternative, if for no other reason than to teach the city planners to think ahead in the future and consider quality of life over special interests and profits. And, guess what? Planes will find another place to fly, one that can be “cost justified,” even considering the quality of life issues.

PETER J. ROYERS

Laguna Hills

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If the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station is not converted to a commercial airport, it would be ludicrous for a businessman to open or expand a good-paying, job-producing manufacturing facility in Orange County. A successful manufacturing company today, in addition to paying good wages and being both price and quality competitive, must be able to ship “just in time” all over the world.

As a retired president of an Orange County company that manufactured a main component of semiconductors used in computers, I have experienced the economic loss of good-paying jobs because we could not ship our product directly from Orange County to Asia, where most computer chips are assembled. Instead of shipping the day’s production to Asia at day’s end, we had to send the parts via truck to LAX to be shipped the following day. Our competitors were located outside Orange County, and without this drawback were able to beat our delivery by at least a day, a significant time in the short-supply computer chip industry.

Among the proposals being considered for nonairport use at El Toro is an industrial complex. This only increases the need for a commercial airport at El Toro, particularly if good-paying jobs are desired.

The bottom line: Good paying, additional jobs need a commercial airport at El Toro.

ROBERT S. ROSENAST

Newport Beach