El Toro Planning: A Crisis in Credibility

A San Diego judge’s criticism of the environmental impact report for an airport at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station came as no surprise. Yet it was a shocking statement when all of the recent developments surrounding base reuse planning are considered.

There are now serious questions about every major aspect of the county’s handling of the El Toro matter. Previously, county planners failed to take seriously other proposals, and the Board of Supervisors signed off on the airport idea. This came about though the county’s own estimates found that alternative uses would provide a roughly equivalent economic benefit. Recently, county bureaucrats were embarrassed into playing catch-up, examining alternatives that from the beginning needed to be explored.

Then there is the issue of cost. Over the summer, the bill for planning the coordination of potential airport operations between John Wayne Airport and El Toro shot up by millions of dollars, leaving the county to explain lamely that it was doing the best it could. Earlier, the county wanted to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on public relations before that proposal produced its own public relations disaster. The estimated $1.4-billion cost of conversion remains a vague target, with nobody in sight to foot the bill.

And now the environmental impact report itself has been called into question for its low estimate of the project’s effect on noise, traffic and pollution. Judge Judith McConnell’s final ruling lent credence to the long-standing concerns of critics. For example, the anti-airport group Project 99 had asked a staggering 1,500 questions at the end of last year, about the time the Planning Commission waved the report through. Even the Irvine Co., which was having an internal debate about the merits of an airport, had questions.

So how has all this happened? The answer, for anyone who might have had any doubt before, is now obvious. The airport has been the choice from the beginning for a powerful group of developers and their supporters in the corridors of county government. All the planning and all the decision making have been mere window dressing to support a foregone conclusion.

Now more signs appear that the planners were willing to cut corners if necessary to obtain the desired result. Were they putting the health and safety of the public at risk? If so, someone should be held accountable.

The entire county is engaged in perhaps the most important land-use decision of the coming century. The supervisors need to get a grip on this thoroughly shoddy process. If need be, they should start fresh to produce more credible planning for the future of the base.