Views Aired on El Toro

* Re “Building Real Consensus on El Toro Reuse,” by Larry Agran, Orange County Voices, March 29:

Now we have a choice. Hats off to Larry Agran for hitting the nail on the head.

I am tired of being told that the voters of Orange County have spoken. How could they have spoken when they didn’t have an alternative in front of them other than the threats of a prison. Both Measures A and S were heavily influenced by the big dollars of developers.

I just attended a meeting of the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority and got to see their plan in Irvine. I was amazed at what they came up with. It cost the cities only about $1 million to produce.

This plan contains all the quality aspects of life in Orange County any of us would be proud of. The county is just starting to write checks totaling $20 million and asking for another $10 million for next year for their planning process.

The county planners claim their plans contain similar parks and recreational facilities although their plan includes an international airport that will put heavy commercial jets flying just feet overhead.

DAVE KIRKEY

Coto de Caza

* Thank goodness Larry Agran spends his time as the self-proclaimed guru of the anti-airport movement and not writing history books for the sons and daughters of future Orange County residents.

First and foremost, anyone involved in this process knows that the extremists of South County who have opposed an El Toro airport have boycotted the process from its onset.

One brave but foolish Irvine councilman attempted to be part of the county’s planning process but had to drop out after being attacked and ostracized by his South County brethren. So much for being part of the planning process.

Like a petulant child, those opposed to the airport refused to be part of the process. Arrogantly, they waited for the rest of the county to follow their narrow-mindedness. When that didn’t happen, they quickly put Measure S on the ballot in an effort to repudiate Measure A.

Measure S lost by a political landslide, thus confirming the county’s intent on moving forward with an El Toro airport.

Agran seems to be laboring under the misconception that the people of Orange County are ignorant and thus their prior votes can’t be taken seriously. What they really need is Project 99’s firm guidance so 4,700 prime acres that are to be bequeathed to the county by the federal government can be turned into a park like Golden Gate Park.

Any serious student on this subject knows that we could put five Golden Gate Parks in the property that encompasses El Toro. Further, the county’s own plan includes not only such a park but also an ecological preserve and an education center.

For Agran and his anti-airport naysayers to boycott the entire planning process, disavow two countywide elections and assume that the county electorate is ignorant and needful of his guidance is insulting.

It’s rather obvious that doing things right, according to Agran, is doing things his way.

RICHARD F. TAYLOR JR.

Newport Beach

* I read with great interest Agran’s magnificent plans for the conversion of 4,700 acres of a potential commercial airport to 4,700 acres of parkland rivaling Golden Gate Park and Central Park.

For some reason, the thought of a huge Central Park-like facility in the middle of Orange County does not sound appealing to me. I envision instead it being a magnet for transients, homelessness and the criminal element, none of which would appear to infuse any type of capital in the county.

Not to worry. Agran indicated that nearby will be colleges and universities in extension of the Irvine Spectrum, where high-tech industry will provide tens of thousands of jobs.

Unfortunately, he does not give us any indication as to how these tens of thousands of workers and their families are going to get in and out of the county, inasmuch as John Wayne will still be a pitifully small and inadequate airport.

No, what I see in Agran’s plan is yet another homogenized, “Stepford”-type park that will benefit only the select few and esteemed citizens of Irvine. Not everyone in South County is opposed to an airport in El Toro; if this is the best that the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority could do, sign me pro-airport.

I have lived in Orange County since I was 3 and have seen all I need to know. Without a doubt, we need another airport, and it only makes sense that it be at El Toro.

Further, being the daughter of a retired senior master sergeant in the Air Force, I spent a lot of my youth watching the jets take off at El Toro.

If this facility has been good enough for the military, which has prevailed to protect our nation and our county, doesn’t it stand to reason that it is now time to move into the millennium and make the obvious [move] to a commercial airport?

MICHELLE L. WITHROW

Aliso Viejo