Opinions Fly on El Toro Airport Plan

* As a key member of the El Toro Coalition, I participated in all the strategic planning over the past six months aimed at stopping a commercial airport at El Toro.

Based on my firsthand knowledge of the facts, I am perplexed as to whom The Times has been consulting in its reporting (Jan. 22 and Jan. 23) and its Jan. 24 editorial on this issue.

Unanimous consensus among our working group developed several months ago to place the initiative on the general election ballot in March of 2000. We didn’t just “run out of time” to catch a special election in 1999.

It was also clear the initiative should take the form of the simple and understandable approach calling for development and expansion of all airports and other noxious uses to require ratification by a super majority of Orange County voters.

This is not a “growth limiting” initiative, as The Times would characterize it. Rather, it places a hurdle in the path of special interests wanting to locate noxious uses within an already urbanized area instead of applying more forward-looking thinking.

Those not having experience in major ballot initiative efforts have little idea of the complexities involved and the opportunity for mischief by a county or state power structure.

For example, thanks in large measure to the ballot language imposed on Measure S by the county counsel, South County voters were generally confused by the fact that a “yes” vote on the measure was required to say “no” to the airport.

A ballot initiative cannot simply say, “Would you prefer to have the airport use or the Millennium Plan?” Since when has it been unfair to accomplish politically desirable ends by using the approach which will work best?

I can, of course, appreciate that the proponents of the airport are running scared now that they have finally learned which beachhead they will have to defend.

TRISTAN E.G. KROGIUS

Monarch Beach

* South County constituents should be amazed by their leaders’ latest failure in the anti-airport crusade.

After bleeding millions of dollars from their constituents and promising them the moon, the anti-airport crusaders couldn’t even clear the control tower.

Let’s step back and investigate what the good people of South County have gotten for their proverbial political buck to date.

They have expended millions of dollars in the hiring of consultants and lobbyists in an effort to influence not only county officials but also countywide elections.

For their efforts, they lost Measure A; they were resoundingly defeated on Measure S; they lost every significant court battle along the way; they floated a proposal for a National Football League franchise, which never got off the ground, was widely ridiculed and ultimately melted away in embarrassment, and last but not least, they very unwisely put all their political eggs in one basket and sought to upset one popular supervisor, all the while ignoring other important supervisorial races. This crass power play landed with a resounding thud at the floor of the voting booth.

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, along came the next debacle.

After promising they would seek a referendum to overturn county-approved plans for a commercial airport at El Toro, the wise sages of the anti-airport movement have now admitted that they have neither the ability nor the votes to proceed with such an initiative at this time.

In fact, the anti-airport machine has gone so far as to lurch to the left and embrace an amorphous, “touchy-feely” proposal to require a two-thirds countywide vote for any “noxious project?”

Perhaps they should seek a two-thirds vote from their own constituents before they begin spending their money so unwisely. But I still have to wonder, what defines a “noxious project.”

Would that include Disneyland? A hospital? A school? Or should we make it retroactive to say the citizens who live in the John Wayne corridor could require that a two-thirds muster is needed for the continuation of activities at John Wayne Airport?

Mark Petracca, an airport opponent, was correct in his assertion that this was “a disaster.”

RICHARD F. TAYLOR JR.

Newport Beach

* If there was any doubt prior to the Jan. 24 editorial that The Times supports an airport at El Toro, it has now been [dispelled].

Unfortunately, this occurred at one of the lowest points in the airport opponents’ history, the delay of the Millennium Plan option for voters.

While airport proponents celebrate, families affected in South County will be left with few options. The proponents will be working overtime to deny South Countians legal remedies, while using the assessor’s office to continue to inflict higher taxes to pay for what Measure A promised wouldn’t cost the county taxpayers a penny.

While proponents and The Times both speak of a “compromise,” it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see proponents have never budged from a large airport, as witnessed by the supervisors’ votes last year.

Of course the proponents are funded by developers who stand to gain from this boondoggle.

The opponents are all “elitists,” according to the proponents, the same ones who live near the flight paths in Newport Beach, Santa Ana Heights, Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach. That is, until the Federal Aviation Administration realigns the runways, effectively closing John Wayne and encouraging 747 takeoffs to the north and west.

When the overflights begin, there will be no respite. This is what the county plans for hundreds of thousands of families who have built their lives and homes and paid their taxes.

Measure A was never passed by those directly affected. The process is fatally flawed from that standpoint alone. It should have been a two-thirds vote for Measure A and a two-thirds vote for any county bonds of over $500 million.

DEREK QUINN

Laguna Niguel

* Is anybody down there in South County really listening? Judging by letters written to The Times, I’d say “no way.” Those people are scared to death that the El Toro airport will ruin their quality of life. Actually, it will improve it in many ways--like building our economy and making air travel easier and cheaper, to name a couple.

Oh, I know, you’re worried about the noise. Well, apparently you don’t want to know the truth about that either. Why else would you fight against having the two-day flight demonstration our county is willing to pay for? Try listening. It’s a great way to learn the truth.

CHELSEA CARBAUGH

Orange