Millennium Plan’s Simplistic Approach Could Hurt O.C.

On the November ballot, Irvine voters will be asked to endorse Measure D, “an advisory resolution of the people of the City of Irvine endorsing the reuse of MCAS El Toro for non-aviation purposes in accordance with the Millennium Plan.”

The measure has been placed on the ballot by the City Council, which hopes to use an overwhelmingly favorable response to convince the rest of Orange County--and state and federal officials--that “the people” do not want a commercial airport at El Toro; they want the non-aviation Millennium Plan. Unfortunately, the Millennium Plan is really a pig-in-a-poke proposal that does not stand up to scrutiny.

While Orange County leaders have been searching since 1968 for a site for an additional commercial airport to meet the county’s ever-growing air transportation needs, there has not been such a need for, and therefore no such search for, a site on which to construct a Millennium Plan. The Millennium Plan came about less than two years ago, not because of any need, but as a vehicle to do one thing: kill the county’s plans for an El Toro international airport. The Millennium Plan’s most ardent supporters really don’t care if it is ever implemented, but its adoption seems the most effective way to kill the county’s airport plan.

To date, the Millennium Plan has attracted little outside interest. The National Football League appears to have little interest in having an expansion team use a 65,000-seat sports stadium. No great university has indicated any interest in establishing a campus at the former Marine base. And there has been a similar lack of interest in the areas of performing arts, libraries or museums.

Disinterested experts who have studied the Millennium Plan agree that it is a proposal that is not realistic.

INTERRA, a management consulting firm specializing in base closure issues, was retained by the Orange County Regional Airport Authority to analyze the Millennium Plan. INTERRA concluded that the Millennium Plan “Includes uses that are publicly appealing, but financially & developmentally questionable; Depends upon speculative public and private entity support; Cannot ‘pay for itself’ as it claims . . . and raises the specter of significant taxpayer burden.”

The Times recently did an analysis of the Millennium Plan that included comments by disinterested experts (“Where Will Orange County Land in 2020?,” May 26). Charles Ratliff, deputy director of the California Post-Secondary Education Commission, said, “It would be a rather steep road to climb to get a campus placement on the El Toro site.”

Stanford University professor Roger Noll, an expert in the economics of professional sports, laughed when told of the idea to build a $250-million football stadium at no cost to taxpayers.

Selma Holo, director of museum studies at USC, said, “More than anything, there has to be a compelling reason to have this thing [a museum], or you’re not going to get the audience.”

Other analysts note that the Millennium Plan is based throughout on inconsistencies and overly optimistic assumptions that, taken together, significantly (adversely) affect the bottom line, and ignore fiscal impacts on neighboring cities.

In my own reading of the Millennium Plan, I was struck with the casual way it treated the problem of dismantling the base, which will have to be done at public expense. For example, the runways, taxiways and aircraft parking ramps must be dug up and disposed of before improvements can begin. This will be a very large project, much larger than the plan seems to envision.

Irvine voters and the people of Orange County should be wary of this pig in a poke that is called the Millennium Plan. They just might be buying a pig with a voracious appetite for their tax dollars.