Business Leaders Polls Apart on El Toro
Dueling visions of what an El Toro airport would mean to the Orange County business community were unveiled last week, and each immediately spurred protests from the opposing side.
According to a survey funded by the city of Irvine, nearly two-thirds of county business executives believe an airport at El Toro would harm the quality of life that helps attract new workers. But that finding was swiftly countered by a separate study, paid for by the Orange County Business Council, claiming just the opposite.
The city survey questioned 303 executives, chosen randomly from about 2,700 Orange County companies with gross sales of $5 million or more. Far from being worried about airport capacity, the executives--none of whom were identified--said their businesses were more affected by problems with attracting skilled workers, snarled traffic and a lack of mass transit and affordable housing.
About a third of the executives said building an El Toro airport was “essential” for handling future growth in airport demand, according to the survey, conducted by the national polling firm Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates. But 56% said demand could be handled by greater use of Los Angeles International, Ontario and John Wayne airports.
The business study, conducted by two university professors, one from each side of the country, focused on jobs created by an airport; specifically, so-called catalytic jobs or those influenced by but not located directly at the airport.
The study indicated that in 20 years, a commercial airport at the closed Marine base would generate
between $14 billion and $19 billion in economic output and spur 20,000 catalytic jobs. Its chief authors were Steven P. Erie from UC San Diego and John D. Kasarda of the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina.
The opponents immediately squared off over the disparate conclusions, which escalate the argument over whether a major airport is wanted or needed for the economic future of a county that has managed to flourish without one.
“Theirs is a snapshot of opinion and ours is a look at the Orange County economy,” said Julie Puentes of the Orange County Business Council. “Our study was purely a look at economics, and we think the state of the economy is a very important indicator of the quality of life.”
She agreed that the top concerns of businesses in their day-to-day operations are such things as finding qualified workers, fighting traffic delays and offering affordable housing for employees. But businesses in the larger sense are sensitive to the overall economy, she said.
“What may be essential [for employers] today isn’t necessarily what’s essential for the county’s economic health in the long term,” she said.
Meg Waters, spokeswoman for a coalition of cities opposed to an airport at El Toro, said the Business Council is out of step with what business leaders want.
“Obviously, if an international airport in Orange County was important to economic growth, we would not be one of the strongest economies in the world today,” she said.
She said the anti-airport coalition has an alternative proposal for development of the base into homes, businesses and a large park, which would achieve economic benefits equal to that of an airport.
The county hasn’t released its own economic analysis of the airport, which is planned to open in 2005 and handle up to 28.8 million passengers a year by 2020. That economic review, contained within a state-required environmental impact report, was to be released last summer but is now due sometime this month.
