Room for Compromise on Airport Issues?

* I would like to thank Anthony Brewster (Letters, Aug. 8) for making a valid point: Orange County needs more airport capacity, and driving to LAX or Ontario is clearly not the answer.

He is also to be commended for clearly articulating the hidden agenda of most South County anti-airport activists: the radical expansion of John Wayne Airport.

However, the argument loses momentum here. Even with the current passenger restrictions in place, John Wayne has among the highest passengers-to-gate ratios of any airport in the world.

It also has just one short 5,700-foot runway. In order to get 20 million passengers through John Wayne, a second, much longer runway must be built, and more gates would be needed.

Literally hundreds of office buildings would need to be purchased (at fair market value), condemned and demolished, arterial streets rerouted and freeways bridged. The costs would easily run into the many billions of dollars.

Sadly, upon completion, Orange County would still not have sufficient airport capacity. South County residents, on the other hand, will have achieved their overriding concern: no airport in my backyard.

A perfect solution to this impasse would involve a high-speed rail line to a far-off airport. The deafening silence you hear coming from Supervisors Todd Spitzer and Tom Wilson, members of the Orange County Transportation Authority board, on the feasibility of a rail line from Orange County to Ontario, LAX or even Palmdale is all you need to know about the financial viability of such a project.

P. WAGNER

Costa Mesa

* In response to the Board of Supervisors delaying a final vote for the El Toro airport plan (Aug. 5), The Times quoted Meg Walters, a spokeswoman for anti-airport cities, as saying the county has spent $25 million on a proposed airport that has become a “money pit.”

What she did not say was that a major reason for both the delay and extra expenses is a fault of the very cities she represents.

Activists against the airport have done everything possible to create chaos for the airport planners, including four lawsuits.

They are not concerned that the majority of us voted for that airport and that it is our taxpayers’ money paying for their schemes.

Now they have created the biggest obstacle of all to thwart those of us in North County who understand the need for El Toro--”The Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative.”

It is the granddaddy of all NIMBY proposals and sets a dangerous future precedent.

N. FRYE

Fullerton

* For all our civilization’s engineering expertise, it may still be argued that we live in a primitive era of dirty machines including cars and jet aircraft.

We tend to try to locate our homes to avoid the ill effects of the automobile, but if a 24-hour-a-day international airport gets built in your neighborhood, you’re pretty much doomed to a life of misery if you stay.

A way can be found to unite the efforts of North and South County, of Irvine and Newport Beach, in their struggles against present and prospective negative impacts of airports on our lives.

That way is to first recognize and acknowledge each other’s interests and fears, and then look to and unite behind effecting the solution.

In Southern California, we have vast expanses of sparsely populated territory for locating airports. And, we can have high-speed rail access to remotely located sites.

An airport facility of this nature with this kind of access would eliminate the need to struggle with freeway traffic to get to the airport.

It also would provide Orange County residents suffering from the effects of John Wayne Airport a way to reduce air traffic there.

So, let’s get together, stop fighting and apply our efforts toward such a solution.

J.S. DOMINGOS

Mission Viejo

* There appears to be a compromise position developing between the citizens of Newport Beach and those of South County.

That position is, no airport at El Toro and no expansion of John Wayne.

Could it be that the citizens of the county have a solution to this vexing problem, but the politicians and their masters with the money won’t hear of it because it doesn’t suit their financial purposes?

If those who are being affected by John Wayne and those who would be affected by El Toro could agree to such a compromise, those not affected by either should butt out, along with Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach).

JACK WEBER

Irvine

* Aug. 1 will go down in the history of Orange County as the day when the basis for compromise in the El Toro situation acceptable to both sides was made possible.

This occurred in the form of two letters that appeared in The Times.

The first was by Jeff Coyne of Newport Beach. He said, “Any fair-minded Orange County residents opposed to an El Toro airport should oppose any easing of capacity restrictions at John Wayne. In addition, South County residents opposed to an El Toro airport should stop using John Wayne.” In the next letter, Dave Schlenker of Laguna Woods, one of our anti-airport leaders, said “South County residents would not fight the closing of John Wayne. . . . We share a common goal--no commercial airports in Orange County.”

So there we have it. If those who are affected by John Wayne agree to oppose an airport at El Toro, and those who would be adversely affected by an airport at El Toro agree to support the closing of John Wayne as a commercial airport, both sides win.

Let the leaders of both sides meet with the Board of Supervisors and convince them that this is the way to enhance the quality of life in Orange County.

Business is doing very well under current conditions and will continue to prosper even without John Wayne as a commercial airport.

JACK HEILPERN

Laguna Woods