County Again Denied Police Power at El Toro Base

Opponents of a proposed commercial airport at El Toro cheered a decision Friday by a state commission that once again delayed giving the county police authority over the former Marine base.

If the State Lands Commission had approved the transfer, normally routine with decommissioned bases, Orange County would have claimed jurisdiction from the federal government, a step airport opponents say would add momentum to the county’s airport plan. Federal officials require that approval before allowing the county to proceed with most interim uses for the base, including cargo flights.

“I’m very disappointed,” said Supervisor Charles V. Smith, one of three on the five-member county Board of Supervisors who backs the airport plan. “This has nothing to do with airport reuse. It’s the community around the base that loses.”

Smith and other airport supporters argued that the transfer, a process known as retrocession, is necessary to allow the Orange County Sheriff’s Department to enforce state laws on the base. Currently, they said, federal marshals must be called in.

The commission’s vote came after nearly a dozen opponents of the proposed airport argued that approving the transfer would allow the county to begin cargo flights and represented a crucial first step toward building the airport. Because of the expected effects of commercial flights, all federal and state environmental studies for the airport should be completed first, they said.

“They made a courageous and thoughtful decision to take more time to consider the issue and not be railroaded into a decision,” said Paul Eckles, executive director of the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority.

Commissioner Kathleen Connell, the state controller, favored approval. But two others on the three-member board, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante and Annette Porini, said they needed more information on the base’s considerable environmental problems--issues that county officials say have nothing to do with retrocession.

“It may not be a legal requirement, but I feel an ethical obligation to review the environmental issues,” Bustamante said.

The commission, which may revisit the issue at its February meeting, also directed its staff to consider whether it could approve retrocession on part of the base.

Transferring police powers has been a routine matter at other closed military bases in California.

Attorneys for El Toro airport opponents, however, filed an immediate challenge to the request from the Department of the Navy and the county.

Without the transfer the county’s plans for certain activities at the base will continue to suffer. Without the county’s ability to arrest lawbreakers, for example, the Navy refused to approve a permit to serve alcohol at the Officer’s Club, a move that dried up three dozen requests for banquets and wedding receptions.

Ambitious plans for immediate cargo flights once the base closed in July also faltered. Michael Lapin, who heads the county’s El Toro master development program, said last month that the county would move ahead with an application for a master lease of the base for nonaviation uses only.

The Navy has postponed negotiations on the master lease until the police transfer occurs. The base property isn’t expected to be deeded to the county for at least a year.

The county has been left with managing a handful of noncontroversial community services at the base, including the golf course, horse stables, a recreational vehicle storage lot and the officer’s club, which eventually reopened for lunches but without bar service.

Navy officials refuse to relax its rules while it still has police jurisdiction because of an earlier incident at Mare Island Naval Air Station in Northern California. A club of motorcycle riders held an event there after the base was closed but before police powers transferred to the state. The event resulted in several arrests, which had to be handled by federal magistrates.

In arguments filed before Friday’s hearing, attorney Richard Jacobs, representing eight anti-airport South County cities, urged the commission to defer action until final environmental studies are certified. The Board of Supervisors is expected to do so in May, and a federal environmental report should be adopted around the same time.

“Eventually, the judiciary will finally decide the issues raised by the county’s efforts,” Jacobs wrote.