El Toro Rift Threatens Other Deals

When the Irvine City Council meets on Tuesday, it will vote on whether to allow Newport Beach to annex Bonita Canyon. But what it really is voting on is whether to punish a neighboring city for supporting a commercial airport at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

If Irvine decides to rescind its approval for its neighbor’s annexation of 334 acres, it will mark the first time an unrelated project is jeopardized because the two cities have opposing views about El Toro.

Newport Beach officials have taken a leading role among cities that favor the conversion of the base into a commercial airport. City officials in Irvine, which borders the base, vehemently oppose the plan.

The debate has always been heated and contentious, but until now it has been limited to lobbying, ballot measures and political fights.

Irvine’s action has raised the debate to a new level of hardball, which has city officials worried that more projects will die because the cities involved have opposing views on El Toro.

“It has gotten so heated it is crossing over into other issues, and I think it will continue to cross into other issues,” Irvine Mayor Christina L. Shea said. “I’m sorry it has come to this, but I don’t feel we had a choice.”

The threat of retaliation from the highly organized anti-airport faction, in fact, is one reason the pro-airport cities have not had a unified voice.

“We don’t want to jeopardize our relationship with some of those people,” Yorba Linda City Councilman John M. Gullixson said. “There are a lot of issues we have to agree on and projects that involve all of us.”

Yorba Linda is one of the cities that pulled out of the Orange County Regional Airport Authority, a state-chartered organization of 10 Orange County cities that favor building an airport at El Toro.

Gullixson pointed to the construction of a new water processing plant, a cooperative effort of many cities, as one of the projects he fears might be sabotaged if the northern cities were more actively involved in promoting an airport at El Toro.

The League of Cities has remained neutral on El Toro, fearing that otherwise it would become impossible for it to reach consensus on its other projects.

Former League of Cities President Laurann Cook said good relations among the member cities is essential for it to be an effective force in the county.

Through the league, for example, Orange County cities have presented a united front in their support for imposing a $1 vehicle licensing fee that would pay for a new fingerprinting system for the county.

She said officials also want to be in agreement over how to handle current pay raise negotiations with the Orange County Fire Authority.

“That is exactly why I would be hesitant to comment or choose sides,” said Cook, who is mayor of Fountain Valley, “because we need to have good, open dialogues.” Fountain Valley has not taken a position on El Toro.

Cook said representatives from all cities are in the process of determining which cities should absorb the remaining county islands. A division between north and south could create problems in that process, she said.

Some city officials said they think the El Toro issue has influenced appointments to county commissions, the latest of which was the removal of Supervisor Todd Spitzer as a regular member of the Local Agency Formation Commission. (He remains an alternate member.)

Airport foes said they will stand behind Irvine if it decides to keep Bonita Canyon, even though they are certain many people think the move would be detrimental to schools in both Newport Beach and Irvine.

If Irvine votes to keep the area, the Newport-Mesa Unified School District would lose more than $6 million dollars in development fees that would have been used to upgrade schools in Corona del Mar.

And the Irvine Unified School District would have to start planning to build a new school in Bonita Canyon and considering where to put high school students, because University High School is over-enrolled.

“I just hope they take a long, hard look at this,” Newport-Mesa trustee Wendy Leece said.

Irvine school district officials maintain that it would be more convenient for Bonita Canyon residents to attend schools in Newport Beach. But they do not plan to contest the council’s decision, whatever it is.

The mayors of Irvine and Newport Beach met Friday in a last-ditch effort to work through their disagreements over El Toro so that they could proceed with the annexation. So far, they have not ironed out their differences.

Other cities are watching.

“Irvine has an opportunity to take an action that shows Newport Beach they will respond when Newport takes harmful action,” Laguna Niguel Councilman Mark Goodman said. “If the opportunity arises, I bet it will happen again.”