Spitzer, Wilson Reaffirm El Toro Airport Stance

In a little-noticed sidelight to the El Toro airport vote this week, two anti-airport supervisors actually voted in favor of one of the four plans, despite weeks of saying they wouldn’t support any of them.

The result: Long-time proponents of an airport at El Toro have seized on the actions of supervisors Thomas W. Wilson and Todd Spitzer, suggesting that their votes signal the first crack in South County’s anti-airport coalition.

Wilson’s and Spitzer’s response: Nonsense.

Though the majority voted for a large commercial airport during Tuesday’s meeting, Wilson and Spitzer first tried to forge a consensus on the smallest proposal. Their effort failed, but the two votes taken together marked the first time that all five supervisors had voted in favor of some kind of airport at El Toro.

“That has never happened before,” Newport Beach Mayor Thomas C. Edwards said. “They want an airport, and now we are only arguing about the size. Actions speak louder than words.”

Wilson and Spitzer strongly disagree.

“I had a choice of abstaining and letting the board majority shove through whatever they wanted,” Wilson said. “I am against all airports, but I didn’t want to sit idly by and let anything get pushed through the system.

“When you are boxed in to choosing something, you certainly want to have the least impacting decision,” he said.

Spitzer could not be reached for comment Thursday, but on Wednesday night he told a South County crowd that there was a need to compromise.

“Do my constituents want me to say, ‘No airport--over my dead body’ or ‘Negotiate the least impacting airport’ or ‘An airport at all costs?’

“I have a very open mind to listen to both plans and make the best decision I can,” he said.

Airport opponents are standing solidly behind Wilson and Spitzer.

What Spitzer and Wilson were trying to do was force the hand of the other supervisors to see if they are as concerned as they claim to be about South County fears of pollution, traffic and noise, said Richard Dixon, head of the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, a coalition of anti-airport cities.

The brouhaha is only the latest example of the heightened political jockeying over the El Toro airport issue, particularly as elections loom next month for Wilson and two other supervisors.

Two weeks ago, Wilson raised the ire of his South County constituents by casting the deciding vote that allowed the county’s chief attorney on El Toro to continue his work for the county.

On Tuesday, the board majority approved an airport that would eventually handle up to 24 million passengers a year and operate cargo and international flights, half of them throughout the night.

Before that action, Wilson and Spitzer tried to win backing for a plan that would have limited an airport to 19 million passengers and have eliminated most cargo and international flights.

Wilson, Spitzer and their supporters say the minority vote was simply a strategic move to try to get at least one more supervisor to support the least offensive of the plans. They had hoped to pick up William G. Steiner, who had expressed support for the smallest airport plan in the days before the meeting.

Dixon said the two supervisors were trying to “ferret out what the pro-airport people really stand for, and right now, it is just a lot of talk about minimizing the total use and impact of an airport.”