Lake Forest Residents Direct Ire at Saltarelli

About 400 residents gathered at a boisterous town hall meeting Wednesday night to let Supervisor Don Saltarelli know that a commercial airport and a maximum security jail are decidedly unwelcome in their neighborhoods.

At times disruptive, the crowd at the El Toro High School auditorium took the opportunity to lambaste both proposals.

“We want guarantees” that felons won’t be released in Lake Forest, demanded resident Doug Neill, “not political rhetoric.”

The audience was no less adamant about the airport. At one point, the group spontaneously broke into a protest song to the tune of “Home on the Range.”

“Just leave me my home where the airplanes don’t roam, and the jets aren’t howling all day,” the crowd sang.

Saltarelli called the meeting to update Lake Forest residents on the proposals to turn the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station into a major commercial airport and to expand the minimum-security James A. Musick Branch Jail into a facility capable of housing felons. The jail is within 1,000 feet of Lake Forest neighborhoods.

Saltarelli urged residents not to “panic” and move out of the area. Still, he made no promises and gave no indication of how he would vote on the jail issue.

Anxious to relieve the chronically overcrowded conditions at the Central Jail in Santa Ana, county supervisors in May approved an environmental study to expand the Musick jail. The proposal scared Lake Forest residents, who mobilized against it.

Residents and city officials have formed a joint opposition group called Jail Alternatives to Musick (JAM). The organization’s first major task will be to review the environmental impact report for flaws.

City Councilwoman Helen Wilson, who joined the rest of the City Council and other city officials at the 2 1/2-hour meeting, told Saltarelli, “We’re asking and demanding that you take a position to actively move this issue in a direction that will solve the problem.”

The airport proposal triggered anger as well.

Saltarelli’s comment, “Don’t tell me I don’t care what happens in El Toro,” drew derisive laughter from the audience. He contributed money to the campaign against Measure S, the recent ballot initiative to stop the commercial airport. The initiative failed by a large margin.

Saltarelli voted against the South County-backed initiative because he felt its impact needed to be studied further.

“How do I protect my clients who would live under a flight path?” a real estate agent yelled from the back of the auditorium.

Lake Forest is next to the El Toro Marine base, which is scheduled to close by 1999. In 1994, voters backed a ballot measure to convert the air base into an airport, but many South County residents remain staunchly opposed.

The jail controversy has become a key issue for 3rd District supervisorial candidates, Mickey Conroy and Todd Spitzer.

Both have offered alternatives: Conroy backing construction of a jail at the vacant George Air Force Base in San Bernardino and Spitzer favoring expansion of the Central Jail in Santa Ana.