Navy to Allow El Toro Recreational Facilities to Stay Open

To the delight of horse owners worried that the stables at El Toro Marine base would close, Orange County supervisors Tuesday approved a lease with the U.S. Navy that allows uninterrupted use of recreational facilities there.

Board Chairman Charles V. Smith said he has been assured by Navy officials in San Diego that the lease will be signed before July 2 when the Marines leave the base for good.

“The Navy is agreeable right down the line,” Smith said. “We hope to have something signed in a week or so.”

Other facilities to remain open to the public include the base golf course, child-development center, the officer’s club, an indoor swimming pool and parking space for recreational vehicles. The stable boards about 150 horses and provides programs for disabled riders and 4-H clubs.

Meanwhile, backers of the international airport planned for El Toro filed a lawsuit seeking to halt an effort by South County airport foes to put an anti-airport initiative on the March 2000 ballot.

Former Supervisor Bruce Nestande, chairman of a pro-El Toro group formed in 1994 by businessman George L. Argyros, alleged in the suit that organizers are circulating faulty petitions for its so-called Safe and Healthy Communities Act. The measure would require two-thirds voter approval for new and expanded airports, jails and hazardous-waste landfills.

The suit, also brought by Newport Beach, the Airport Working Group and the Orange County Airport Alliance, further alleges that the initiative is unconstitutional and violates state law.

Initiative sponsors denounced the lawsuit as harassment.

“These people will stop at nothing to deny voters their right to be heard on this issue,” said attorney Jeff Metzger, chairman of Citizens for Safe and Healthy Communities, the petition drive organizer.

Metzger said more than 40,000 voters have signed the petitions. The group needs about 71,000 voter signatures by Sept. 1 to qualify the measure for the ballot next March.

The signature gathering was boosted over the weekend, Metzger said, by reaction to demonstration flights by commercial jets into and out of El Toro. The $1.3-million test flights were approved by the Board of Supervisors’ pro-airport majority.

Irvine officials set up half a dozen noise monitors along the approach and northern departure path used by the jets. County officials set up 10 monitoring stations to the north, south and east of the base.

Partial readings from Irvine indicate that a Boeing 767 taking off from El Toro above the intersection of Portola Parkway and Jeffrey Road generated 86.1 decibels; a wide-body Boeing 747 generated 89.5 decibels. A vacuum cleaner registers 80 decibels.

Irvine planner Dan Jung said final results will be ready in two weeks. That’s also when county officials said their report on the test flights will be presented to supervisors.