El Toro Planning

* As one who has been critical of your coverage of the El Toro issue, I was heartened by your Nov. 30 editorial on that subject.

As a former mayor, and now as a private citizen, I have advocated that any commercial airport developed at El Toro should be limited in size and scope. As a director of the Airport Working Group, I was asked to develop a policy for that body, which I did, and which the board adopted in February 1997. 1 quote excerpts from that policy:

Section 5--Retain John Wayne Airport as a commercial airport, with a maximum capacity of 8.4 million passengers per year, plus general aviation uses, but without air cargo requirements, as long as it is economically feasible.

Section 9--Airport Operations:

(a) Establish and support a curfew consistent with what exists at John Wayne Airport (i.e., 7 a.m.-10 p.m. for takeoffs and up to 11 p.m. for landings).

(b) Limit the airport to Stage III aircraft and adopt a policy of vigorously pursuing access to the airport by “a state of the art” aircraft with the lowest noise outputs. (It should be noted that federal requirements dictate that all airlines be operating Stage III aircraft by 1999).

(c) Install a noise monitoring system to ensure that all aircraft are complying with the noise standards.

(d) Establish fixed approaches and takeoffs consistent with the findings of DIR 563. Establish a policy that no takeoffs or landings will occur over the city of Irvine in a westerly direction except for emergency purposes.

With imagination and good planning, the above can be accomplished in spite of the 1990 Airport Noise and Capacity Act. But the main point is that the editors of The Times have made a reasonable proposal.

CLARENCE J. TURNER

Newport Beach

* Orange County Business Council Executive Vice President Julie Puentes was quoted on Nov. 30 as lamenting the “emotionally charged” nature of the El Toro debate and “wishing that the public would have more confidence in the county’s planning process.” For most South County residents, opposition to converting El Toro to a commercial airport is less emotional and more rational than airport proponents would like to believe.

Nothing could be more rational than wanting to know the exact nature of the relationship between county planners and Orange County business interests at whose behest this freight train is being pushed down the track.

Nothing could be more rational than not trusting organizations whose members have lied in the past. During the Measure S ballot initiative, an entity called “Citizens for Jobs and the Economy” mailed an “election notice” to South County residents containing the following statements now known to be untrue:

* If an airport was not built on the site the land would likely be used “for jails and prisons, which would house up to 11,000 inmates.”

* County planners would seriously consider all alternatives. The mailer plainly stated, “The current planning process does not require a commercial airport at El Toro.”

* In reference to whether “planes would take off and land directly over Laguna Niguel,” the mailer declared falsely “FAA rules and environmental regulations would prevent that from happening.”

Lastly, nothing could be more rational than expressing frustration at the county’s near complete disregard for the wishes of those residents who will be most affected by any El Toro conversion plan.

GEORGE MON

Laguna Niguel

* The group of pilots disputing the safety concerns about the proposed El Toro airport (“Pilot Group Backs El Toro Runway Use,” Nov. 20) speaks out to promote the pro-airport views of Newport Beach rather than address serious flight safety concerns.

County planners propose that takeoffs from the El Toro airport will occur to the east off runways 7 Left and 7 Right. The triple problem of excessive runway slope, predominant tail winds, and the rising terrain and mountains are such that any plan to rely on east takeoffs is really an attempt to mask other issues.

The east-facing runways are out of the question for airliner departures. That is why both the Air Line Pilots Assn. and Allied Pilots Assn. have spoken out against such planned takeoffs.

Before every single takeoff in an airliner, the pilots must consider what they would do in the event of an engine failure during takeoff. It is this “worst-case scenario” that Federal Aviation Administration safety standards seek to address.

These relatively infrequent engine failures during takeoff do occur. John Wayne Airport has had three just since last spring, two Boeing 757s (United and American) and one Airbus A-320 (Northwest). To suggest that a pilot would knowingly take off toward the mountains with a tail wind when safer runways are available is more than a bit misleading.

The assertion that airlines will reduce aircraft payloads to take off on these east-facing runways is absurd. In the razor-thin profit world of airlines, that is not going to happen. Any other runway selection for takeoff improves the safety margin, and allows maximum payloads for increased profits.

TODD THORNTON

Laguna Beach

* The contretemps between the anti-El Toro Airport minority of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, Thomas W. Wilson and Todd Spitzer, and the county chief executive officer, Jan Mittermeier, over the meeting plans of county staffers appears to have been resolved.

The incident illustrates a useful distinction between governance and management. The supervisors are charged by the voters with governance, the setting of policy. Their appointee (the CEO) is the manager assigned to implement that policy.

Because they represent the people, the supervisors have near-absolute discretion to decide what information they need to promote the public interest.

Wilson’s request for information on staff’s El Toro meeting schedule is valid precisely because he, one of the people’s direct representatives, deems it so.

The supervisors are akin to a corporate board of directors. They should set policy, pick the best CEO to implement it, and give that person sufficient authority, freedom and time to do the job.

Biweekly briefings, as suggested by the CEO and apparently approved by the supervisors, are an appropriate pattern of communication. The briefings should satisfy the supervisors’ need for information without hampering the CEO with unpredictable demands.

I assume the briefings will be public, so they will have the additional, and very important, benefit of demonstrating to airport proponents and opponents alike that reuse planning is proceeding in a fair and orderly manner.

We members of the public have an obligation, too: to permit the El Toro reuse planning to go forward in an atmosphere of civility and rationality. Public policy should be set on the basis of research, not emotion and politics. Let the facts be known, and let the facts prevail.

REED L. ROYALTY

San Juan Capistrano