Airport at El Toro Spurs Arguments

Taking El Toro airport off the table is a permanent act. Killing it is not something that can be undone.

We hear a lot of discussion from anti-airport forces about using Palmdale, Ontario Airport or March Air Force Base in Riverside County. We continue to hear a lot of talk about “bullet trains” to make these far-off airports a feasible 20-minute trip. All at no taxpayer cost, of course.

The latest mention of this is from 2nd District supervisorial candidate Dave Sullivan. It is sad that Sullivan, an otherwise decent person, has sold out his district to become a shameless shill for wealthy South County interests.

Wouldn’t it make sense to have a concrete plan, including exact track route and funding sources, in place before taking El Toro off the table forever? Sullivan and his anti-airport cohorts would oppose this, of course.

Putting plans for long-distance, high-speed trains on paper would expose them for what they are: multibillion-dollar boondoggles for taxpayers.

P. WAGNER

Costa Mesa

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I am one of the concerned Coto de Caza residents who, along with my friends and their children, peacefully demonstrated in front of Gen. William Lyon’s home Oct. 13 when Lyon hosted a fund-raising reception for Supervisor Jim Silva, a fervent proponent of the El Toro international airport.

We demonstrated because we felt that Lyon showed his fellow residents a great deal of disrespect in raising money for a candidate who was going to use it directly against us on an issue that concerns us so deeply.

In a terrible display of arrogance, Lyon responded to our demonstration by threatening to have Orange County sheriff’s deputies arrest us for trespassing because we were standing on an equestrian trail in front of his house and along the street, a trail to which public access is given all Coto residents.

How and why Lyon was able to obtain the full-time attendance of six deputies, at taxpayer expense, to “protect” him against his neighbors is one question The Times should be asking.

While Jim Silva rails against his opponent, Dave Sullivan, for raising campaign funds from South County citizens, over 70% of Silva’s contributions have come from outside his district. Most of those funds came from the same developers who put him in office in the first place, and to whom he is beholden.

TERRY CORWIN

Coto de Caza