Judge Chooses to Delay Final El Toro Ruling

A Superior Court judge here chose not to issue a final ruling Tuesday in the case pitting South County interests against the Orange County Board of Supervisors in determining the future use of El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

By delaying her final ruling, Judge Judith McConnell enhanced the county’s hopes of changing her mind on several issues surrounding the key planning document governing the construction of a civilian airport at El Toro.

Last week, McConnell issued a tentative ruling in which she called the county’s environmental impact report on El Toro “unrealistic” and “inappropriate” in minimizing an airport’s impact on noise, traffic and pollution.

But after Tuesday’s oral arguments, Jim Moose, a Sacramento lawyer who represents the plaintiffs, called Michael Gatzke, the San Diego attorney who represents Orange County, “a very good lawyer who raised some questions” that McConnell is now willing to reconsider.

Chief among those involves the future of John Wayne Airport. In her tentative ruling, the judge ruled that the report “improperly assumed John Wayne Airport would be expanded and then closed.” She added that the county’s assessment of the future of John Wayne Airport “does not appear to be reasonable.”

Gatzke argued that the report made no such assumption. But rather than fault the judge, Gatzke declared in open court that he had done “a poor job” of arguing the county’s case in legal briefs and attempted to rectify the situation with a lengthy explanation Tuesday.

Nevertheless, Moose said, “the errors the county repeatedly made [in the environmental impact report] were to severely underestimate the impacts of a major commercial airport at El Toro . . . and nothing will take those away.”

Although the judge has 90 days in which to issue a final ruling, attorneys for both sides expect one by the end of the week.