Business Council’s Bottom Line: Get Going on El Toro

Although usually more comfortable flexing its political muscle behind the scenes, the Orange County Business Council has pushed itself to the forefront of the raging debate over future use of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

For the past several months, members have been meeting and planning strategy to increase their role in promoting development of a civilian airport at the surplus military base. And members are discussing possibly recruiting pro-airport candidates to run for the county Board of Supervisors.

At the heart of the move is a growing dissatisfaction with the county’s planning process. County officials, council members say, have not done a good job of engaging the public’s trust on the airport issue.

“We wish that the public would have more confidence in the county’s planning process,” said Julie Puentes, the council’s executive vice president. “When an issue becomes as emotionally charged as this one has, it is especially important that everything be done to engender public confidence in the process. I think the county needs to work harder on that.”

Although council members are not shy about voicing support for the airport, their galvanization is sure to add yet another facet to the debate that has split the county along north-south lines.

Considering the enormous economic benefits that council members believe a commercial airport could bring to Orange County, members are willing and able to jump into the middle of the El Toro hornet’s nest.

“Certainly the airport issue creates a lot of emotion in people and it jeopardizes the trust factor,” said Ed Snavely, general manager of the Marriott Hotel in Anaheim and a member of the council. “There has been a void of facts on both sides.”

The Business Council is a nonprofit organization of about 1,200 companies and 350,000 Orange County employees. Although not all members support a commercial airport, Puentes said she has not received any protest letters against the council’s pro-airport position statement.

Business Council members include Dick Allen of DIMA Ventures, a venture capitalist firm; Gary Hunt of the Irvine Co.; and Stan Oftelie, president and chief executive officer of the council and former director of the Orange County Transportation Authority.

Members maintain that building an airport in El Toro would bring an economic boost to Orange County.

“At this point, we think that we as a county would really be missing an opportunity if we do not continue planning for an airport,” Puentes said. But she cautioned that there are still many “unanswered questions about how an airport in Orange County could be most effectively planned.”

Over the last two months, council members have been meeting to create a plan. They hope to organize speakers bureaus, participate in technical advisory committees for the planning process and begin a letter-writing campaign in favor of the airport directed to decision-makers.

Recently, nearly 35 members held their first meeting with county Chief Executive Officer Jan Mittermeier. It was the beginning of a series of meetings that members say they hope will bring them into the loop.

At that meeting, a small controversy erupted when Gail Reavis, a South County resident who Puentes said was not invited, showed up. Reavis was escorted out of the meeting.

The incident sparked an angry response from some anti-airport activists who accused Puentes and the Business Council of quashing dissent.

Puentes said the council hopes to sponsor a forum where all sides can air their views. The Mittermeier function was a private event held for members only, she said.

Airport foes again got their feathers ruffled when they saw a council memo from a Sept. 16 meeting that discussed candidate recruitment strategies.

Currently, Supervisors William G. Steiner, Charles V. Smith and Jim Silva have maintained their support for the airport project. Board members Todd Spitzer and Thomas W. Wilson are against a commercial airport at El Toro.

“Spitzer has taken an ‘oppose’ position without being held accountable for it in a district which supported an airport twice at the ballot box,” said the memo, referring to the passage of Measure A in 1994, which cleared the way for an airport to be built, and the subsequent defeat of Measure S, which sought to annul Measure A, in 1996.

“We’ve already lost one of the four airport votes [when Spitzer replaced Jim Saltarelli] and cannot chance losing another,” stated the memo, referring to the 4th District, the seat held by Steiner, who has announced he will retire at the end of next year.

Puentes said the memos do not mean that Business Council members will try to recall Spitzer or Wilson, but rather that they are simply getting ready for the election in June. She said she is aware of the opposition facing the airport and the heat her organization will face.

“That is what the process is all about--everybody wants to articulate their point of view,” she said. “People will perhaps be disappointed that we want to be as involved as we want to be. We want to get our message out there.”