El Toro Is Second Airport Fight for Newport Activists

They are experienced warriors who have been called back to battle.

At first glance, it seems strange that people who cut their activist teeth on an anti-airport fight 20 years ago should become the commanders of a new campaign promoting a commercial airport at the El Toro Marine base.

The residents of Newport Beach were ensnarled in their own epic struggle against the county’s plans to expand John Wayne Airport--until they brokered a deal to cement a ban on nighttime flights and cap the airport’s size into the next century.

Now, faced with a lifting of that agreement in 2005, Newport Beach has become the rallying point for supporters of an El Toro airport, pitting the county’s oldest airport fighters against a new crop of insurgents from South County. The renewed organizing took place quietly over the past year after others failed to coalesce into a unified voice in promoting an airport for the 4,700-acre Marine base.

Their strength was publicly unveiled last week, when Newport Beach residents dominated a meeting in which the county Board of Supervisors chose an airport plan for El Toro, calling for 24 million passengers a year with a mix of domestic, international and cargo flights.

“At first, the city took the conservative position that Newport Beach didn’t want to be out front,” said attorney Barbara Lichman of the Airport Working Group. “But we argued that Newport Beach shouldn’t be ashamed of supporting its citizens and the citizens of the county. If it has got to be South County vs. Newport Beach, so be it.”

So it is, said Irvine Mayor Christina L. Shea, a vocal airport opponent who accuses Newport Beach of wielding its political clout and wealth to bully South County into accepting an airport it doesn’t want.

“What’s really going on is that the Board of Supervisors is going to build El Toro, shut John Wayne and have a 33-million-passenger airport at El Toro,” Shea said. “They want to let one city direct where an airport should go. What we ought to be doing is expand John Wayne Airport because it would have the least impact on the fewest residents at the lowest cost.”

The Newport troops quickly have scored some tactical victories, led by veteran airport activists within city government and the 15-year-old Airport Working Group, plus former Supervisor Don Saltarelli, now lobbying for the city.

Last month, they persuaded county planners to study changes in proposed northerly departure routes from El Toro to avoid sending airplanes directly over Tustin and Orange--two important allies in the pro-airport battle. They doubled the number of cities--from five to 10--in the Orange County Regional Airport Authority, formed 15 years ago to promote a second airport in the county.

Last week, Newport leaders, joined by businessman George Argyros and Anaheim Mayor Tom Daly, convinced three of the five county supervisors to adopt a preferred airport plan for El Toro--a decision that wasn’t expected until early summer. The designation puts out a more salable version of an airport to compete with the opposition’s recently unveiled Millennium Plan, which would put a park, retail and cultural complex on the land.

Even opponents acknowledge that their Newport neighbors are a force to be reckoned with.

“When they planned Measure A and saddled the county with this preposterous project, I knew they meant business,” said Larry Agran, former Irvine mayor and head of the anti-airport group called Project 99, referring to the 1994 ballot initiative that paved the way for an airport. “They pride themselves on being able to dictate what they want to county supervisors, and they are good at it.”

The push from Newport Beach has its roots in decades of effort to keep a lid on John Wayne Airport, which is capped at 8.4 million passengers a year under strict noise and operational controls until 2005.

‘We are taking advantage of the tremendous historical knowledge that we have on this airport issue,” said former Newport Beach Mayor Clarence Turner, who with Lichman and former Councilwoman Jean Watt spearheaded the anti-expansion movement in the 1970s and ‘80s.

“There is an awful lot at stake,” Turner said. “All of us know that if this airport is not built, there will be tremendous pressure on the Board of Supervisors to expand John Wayne. We cannot lose--it’s just that simple.”

Their movement was not always so orchestrated.

Last fall, the pro-airport movement was on the defensive. It suffered a major blow when a Superior Court judge ruled that the county’s environmental impact report was flawed in several areas, including assessing the traffic and noise impacts of an airport. In addition, a UCI public-opinion poll indicated eroding countywide support for the El Toro airport.

Discomfort over the county’s ability to put a commercial airport at El Toro had begun among pro-airport activists as early as 1994, Lichman said. At that time, El Toro was on the national military base-closure list. Pro-airport supporters worried that a coalition stacked with South County cities might position itself to become the official entity in charge of reuse plans.

That’s when organizers within the Airport Working Group joined with business leaders--principally Argyros--to devise a countywide initiative that would cement two things: rezoning for an airport at El Toro and designation of the Board of Supervisors as the official authority representing the community on the airport issue.

The initiative became Measure A, which passed with a thin majority.

But frustration with the county’s snail-like pace to aggressively create and publicize specific airport plans continued.

Last fall, Newport Beach politicians such as Mayor Thomas C. Edwards complained that county officials were losing ground to an increasingly vocal opposition, partly because they wouldn’t release specific proposals detailing the size and type of airport for El Toro. County officials countered that doing so would be premature, which further infuriated South County residents seeking answers.

“Everything the county did was under a microscope and whatever you do, you have to be very sensitive” to the publicity glare, Edwards said. “We met innumerable times [with county staff] just to talk about how everybody is watching. Once they recognized the importance of this, we worked through that and it’s gotten better and better.”

Those meetings were painfully blunt for some county planners who did not recognize the El Toro airport controversy as primarily a political and public relations battle as opposed to a planning issue, according to several sources who attended the meetings.

Newport Beach officials acknowledge that to continue winning on the El Toro issue, they need to tap into the so-called silent majority in Central and North County that supported an international airport in Measure A and rejected Measure S, the unsuccessful attempt two years later to repeal the airport zoning.

The push to get North County cities more involved in the pro-airport effort is being spearheaded by the Orange County Regional Airport Authority, whose executive director is also Newport Beach’s deputy city manager.

Peggy Ducey was named to the position in January and has been meeting with representatives from several North County cities to drum up business. So far, nine cities have joined or rejoined the authority in support of an airport, Ducey said.

“Granted, [Newport residents] are at the forefront of it, but I think you have to get some broader-based support,” Edwards said. “Los Alamitos, Cypress, Villa Park and Anaheim are concerned, but they are not focusing on this. What’s important is making certain that people know about it and do something about it.”

South County officials are well aware that although passions are high against the airport in their cities, airport interest is tepid among many North County residents. They argue that North County voters responded in a vacuum when they voted on the airport because they had nothing concrete to choose between.

“We have a superior plan and we’ll be taking it on the road,” Irvine Mayor Shea said. “We need to be in an aggressive mode. There’s a time when you don’t deal with your enemies; you go with your own plan.”