Project ’99 Offers Alternatives to an Ill-Planned El Toro Airport

The sage philosopher Yogi Berra once said, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”

The fight to stop the El Toro International Airport is going into extra innings. Despite two elections where big-bucks developers funded massive disinformation campaigns to mislead the electorate, objective reviews by both the Air Transport Assn. and the Air Line Pilots Assn. found serious flaws in the project.

The pilots found that the only way to make El Toro safe for commercial airlines is to rebuild the runways so that departures take off directly over Irvine homes. This finding vindicated what we’ve said all along--an El Toro International Airport will devastate Irvine neighborhoods.

That’s why we, along with other Irvine residents, have founded Project ’99. We’re fighting to implement a sensible conversion plan when the Marines leave the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. Our goal is to see the base converted to non-airport uses that will benefit Orange County’s economy without ruining the quality of life Irvine residents have worked so hard to achieve.

Irvine is respected around the world as America’s largest master-planned community, a city known for managed growth and public participation in the development process. The airport, which would be located within Irvine’s planning area, totally violates Irvine’s General Plan and destroys our dream of what Irvine should be in the 21st century. That’s why Irvine citizens must stand up now and get involved.

Project ’99 is organized into three task forces, to be led by volunteers from within the community:

* Legal Defense and Environmental Review: The studies by the airline industry and the pilots show that the conversion plans are highly questionable, based on faulty data. The county proposal grossly overestimates demand. It also ignores the Federal Aviation Administration’s analysis that El Toro causes significant problems with existing air traffic in the Los Angeles Basin.

This first task force will join other municipal and grass-roots efforts to defend our quality of life by going to court if necessary.

* Full Use of John Wayne Airport: The developers claim that we need an international airport at El Toro to address growing demand. What they continually fail to mention is that, due to a prior agreement with the city of Newport Beach, John Wayne Airport’s current use is artificially capped at less than 50% of its physical capacity. So why build a second airport--at a cost of $2 billion to $5 billion--when John Wayne can do the job just fine for the next 25 years?

The airline industry is asking the same question. The international airport’s boosters told us that our tax dollars wouldn’t be tapped for their project; the airline industry report said that they have no interest in financing a second airport while John Wayne is being paid off. That project still owes about $250 million.

So who will pay for the new airport, and the massive transportation infrastructure to get there? You guessed it. We the taxpayers. That’s why all Orange County residents must--in the name of fiscal sanity--oppose El Toro.

This second task force will study a proposal that no airport at El Toro (or anywhere else in Orange County) be built until John Wayne reaches its full physical capacity, with its debt paid in full.

* Alternative Uses for El Toro: The airport’s proponents have consistently refused to seriously consider any alternative for El Toro other than an international airport. If they won’t do it, we will!

This third task will look at many attractive non-airport options. A regional transportation center featuring a commuter monorail. A high-tech manufacturing complex. An education center. A major entertainment facility, including amusement parks, movie theaters and sports arenas. A 2,000-acre agricultural and wildlife preserve. Project ’99 will enlist its own urban planner, who will be charged with assisting volunteer participants in issuing a report that assesses all the non-airport alternatives.

Project ’99 has already received hundreds of donations from supportive citizens. That’s just the start. We’re reaching out to other cities impacted by the proposed airport. Citizens throughout Orange County are welcome to join us.

Yogi Berra knows a late-inning rally when he sees one. I think he’d agree that this game is far from over.