Group’s Flight Plan: El Toro, Not John Wayne

This group includes an unlikely mix of homemakers, pilots, political activists and others who pretty much feel like member Bonnie O’Neil: “I don’t want planes flying over my house.”

Sounds like a typical South County resident opposed to developing a commercial airport at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, right? Wrong. O’Neil is a Newport Beach resident and activist in the Airport Working Group, which heartily supports developing an El Toro airport as a way to curb expansion of John Wayne Airport.

“No one wants an airport or planes flying overhead. But I think they’re being hypocritical,” O’Neil says of South County residents opposed to an El Toro airport. “They have to do their share. All the growth has been in South County. They’re creating the demand for an airport.”

On Wednesday, the Airport Working Group makes a foray back into the public eye when it hosts a forum at 7 p.m. at the Balboa Bay Club at which Orange County Supervisor Marian Bergeson--a Newport Beach resident who was once involved in group activities--can expect some pointed questions.

Bergeson raised the ire of members last week when she announced she is resigning from the board to become Gov. Pete Wilson’s education secretary and said she wants to be replaced by a South County resident who opposes building an airport that would serve 38.3 million passengers a year.

“We are going to hold her feet to the fire,” said executive director Barbara Lichman, who disagrees with Bergeson’s litmus test for a replacement. “At the very, very least, she should be considering our interests, not ignoring us.”

In December, the county will decide whether to follow the endorsements of two countywide elections and build a civilian airport at El Toro when the military retires the base by 1999.

The county’s proposal for a commercial-cargo airport at El Toro calls for turning John Wayne into a general aviation facility. The second airport proposal being considered by the county would turn El Toro into a cargo-general aviation airport and expand John Wayne to serve about 15 million annual passengers a year.

Supporters say an El Toro airport would bring jobs, stimulate the economy and help meet growing passenger demand. Opponents--mainly South County residents who live near the base or under proposed flight paths--are worried about noise, traffic and potential crashes.

The Airport Working Group has much in common with Taxpayers for Responsible Planning, one of the most vocal organizations fighting an El Toro airport. Both groups gripe about an airport’s negative impacts. Both say a major airport doesn’t belong in their neighborhood.

But most of all, both are outspoken supporters of an airport in the other guy’s backyard.

Taxpayers for Responsible Planning says John Wayne should be expanded and El Toro used for non-aviation options. It would be a waste of the taxpayers’ funds and John Wayne’s resources to build a second airport when an expanded facility at John Wayne could serve much of the county’s aviation needs, they say.

The Airport Working Group says an El Toro airport should be built because John Wayne and Newport Beach are already carrying the burden. John Wayne’s 500-acre facility operates too close to Newport Beach neighborhoods, while the 4,700-acre El Toro base is surrounded by a 13,000-acre “no homes” buffer zone, making it a better location, members say.

Lichman is quick to point out what she says is a critical difference between the two groups: “We’re not saying ‘not in my backyard.’ We’re saying no more. Keep John Wayne as it is. Don’t expand it.”

Started in 1982 as a coalition of local homeowner associations upset by expanding operations at John Wayne, the Airport Working Group negotiated a 1985 court agreement that keeps a cap on night flights and the number of passengers and tons of cargo that pass through John Wayne until 2005.

But many of the nearly 3,000 families said to belong to the group saw it as only a partial victory, organizers said. It would be only a matter of time before someone proposed expanding operations when the court agreement expired. The answer, they believed, was finding an alternate site for an Orange County airport.

At one point, the group was guiding a study of potential airport sites, but the effort ultimately languished. When the military in 1993 proposed closing the 4,700-acre El Toro base, members--including Newport Beach council members and others--saw their chance and lobbied elected officials both here and in Washington to close the base and turn it into an airport, Lichman said.

Facing anti-airport sentiment, they crafted Measure A, the initiative narrowly endorsed by voters in November 1994 supporting an El Toro airport and upheld recently in the courts. The group rallied opposition to a rival initiative, Measure S, that failed at the polls in March and would have blocked an airport at El Toro.

Since then, they have maintained mostly a low profile and worked behind the scenes with lobbying and mailers to support an El Toro airport, leaving much of the public debate to others.

Observers say that is a shrewd move. Few things can infuriate South County’s airport opponents like the mention of Newport Beach residents who back an El Toro airport.

Bill Kogerman, a founder of Taxpayers for Responsible Planning, echoes South County’s suspicions that the Airport Working Group has an ulterior motive--the eventual shutdown of John Wayne.

“The hidden agenda, as with all Newport Beach groups regarding El Toro, is closing John Wayne,” Kogerman says.

Not true, Lichman says.

“I’m sure some members feel that way, but that’s not our goal,” she said. “That’s not the agenda.”

Lichman says it’s time for another community in Orange County to share the burden. She suggests South County residents use their energy to fight for curbs on an El Toro airport, such as a night curfew or a limit on the number of daily fights.

“And we’d be willing to help them with that, because we’ve been through it all before with John Wayne,” Lichman said. “They don’t realize it, but the reality is we have exactly the same interests.”