Look, Then Leap Into El Toro Plans

* Former Orange County Supervisor Roger R. Stanton’s wise recommendation recently to study the economic benefits of a nonairport option in conjunction with studying the economic benefits of the airport option reflect a modicum of wisdom in a county otherwise fraught with “leap before you look” politics.

The supervisors, in limiting the size of the proposed airport at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station to a maximum of 25 million passengers per year, reflect a degree of honesty known by most individuals all along, that geography constraints and real consumer use of El Toro will probably not exceed 20 million to 22 million annual passengers, even if John Wayne closes.

That reality significantly reduces the potential income generated to the county by the airport. If the environmental impact report projections of revenue generated by an airport are utilized as a comparison, revenue generated by the nonairport option greatly outstrips even a 25-million passenger airport. When lack of full land use of the “no-build zone” is incorporated into the equation, the nonairport option produces three to four times the income of an airport option.

If the $2-billion airport turns out to be noncompetitive in this region of airports, Orange County will likely be thrown into a second bankruptcy. Let’s do as Stanton suggests and carefully study both options. We cannot afford to make a costly mistake.

ERIC C. CHASE

Lake Forest

* The majority may rule in a democracy, but one thing a majority of voters cannot do is vote to take away the rights of a minority.

Yet, this is exactly what a majority of the Orange County supervisors voted to do in accepting an environmental report on the proposed El Toro International Airport that simply ignores the human cost to elderly residents caught directly in the flight path.

It is a documented fact that the life span of senior citizens is seriously impacted by noise and other pollution from a nearby major airport. These elderly people will have poorer health and die sooner than they would otherwise. I can give dates and specifics from a number of studies that have concluded just this. However, the airport environmental impact report completely ignores this reality and, in accepting the report, the Orange County supervisors do also. Yet, it would seem that life itself, even for senior citizens, is clearly a civil right.

There are over 46,000 senior citizens living in the immediate area of the proposed El Toro airport who would be exposed to the loud decibels of frequent airplane noise directly overhead in a previously quiet residential neighborhood. They have moved to Orange County particularly because of its peacefulness. One might even say they were enticed to a county by a government that now votes to kill them off at an accelerated rate.

It doesn’t matter if a majority of voters says this is OK. It isn’t. Thank God we are past the time when people had no other recourse but to accept the “tyranny of the majority.” There are many courts and many judges, and we will fight the El Toro airport until our dying breath, because this is obviously an unjust decision.

HAZEL HOLLREISER

Laguna Hills