El Toro Airport Far From a Done Deal
* A reader of the May 9 Times editorial “City of Irvine vs. Irvine Co.” might think that an airport at El Toro is simply a matter of time.
But as someone who has been at the front lines of this issue since day one, the accurate view is that time is running out for the airport. How the airport issue plays out between the Irvine Co. and the City of Irvine is only one chapter in the debate.
As the editorial points out, the county has pre-approved the airport. However, we believe the citizens of Orange County will see the damage this “decide first, plan second” approach can cause.
The Safe and Healthy Communities initiative drafted by the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority will undo the damage and get the process back on track. But it’s just one of many strategies.
In the past two years anti-airport forces have won every major legal challenge; stopped the county’s interim cargo; stopped interim leases; and caused the county to revise its airport plan at least three times.
More importantly, with 89% of the people in south Orange County opposed to an airport, the strength of our political will to continue this fight, for years if necessary, cannot be matched by the lukewarm support for an airport everywhere else except Newport Beach.
The Times points out, “Only a new vote, or successful litigation, or a change in the makeup on the board, could change the basic drift.”
Focusing on the county process ignores the fact that the ultimate decisions will not happen in the Hall of Administration, but rather in Washington D.C., Sacramento, in the courts and at the polls.
An important victory at any level can stop the airport. There will be new votes, multiple lawsuits and an ongoing effort to change the makeup or outlook of the Board of Supervisors.
The airport at El Toro is far from a done deal.
SUSAN WITHROW
Chairman, El Toro Reuse Planning Authority
Council Member, Mission Viejo
* There comes a time when one must cease studying the issues and resolve to resolve the issues.
The City of Irvine would like to hear from The Irvine Co. as to where it falls on an international airport in our neighborhood (May 9 editorial).
Were corporate leaders and its staff of long-range planning advisors caught unaware? Is the Orange County public to understand that the largest single county landowner had no thought about the reuse of 4,700 acres lying contiguous to its prime developable real estate until queried by a local council member?
Yes, an international airport is going to be disruptive to the surrounding communities for many miles in every direction, whether from air traffic overhead or ground traffic generated by such a massive and intense land use.
No, property values will not diminish. The existing Marine air facility did not deter major residential development in the last 30 years. Historically, short-term land values tend to increase at a more rapid rate in the surrounding regions of a new airport.
However, it will entail significant dislocation, redevelopment and disruption to existing communities that expected long-term stability.
A reasonable and dispassionate outsider might expect that a family moving to one of the planned communities in Orange County today would be informed about the possibility of an [airport] as its near-term neighbor.
A family who located in the same community a dozen years ago had no such expectation; apparently, neither did the Irvine Co.
LOWELL WILLIAMS
Irvine
* Your May 9 editorial suggests that there is nothing to be gained from continuing the debate over whether a commercial airport should be constructed at El Toro, that the only issue remaining to be discussed is what type of airport.
What? Has The Times never advocated for a change of the status quo? Particularly a nascent, feeble status quo?
The reuse of El Toro is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the residents and businesses of Orange County.
In addition, any reuse must be fair to the communities located near El Toro. Constructing an airport at El Toro is not only a poor use of an extraordinary resource but is clearly harmful and unfair to the local communities.
Given what we have at stake, we should debate this issue over and over again until we get it right.
The Irvine Co. disingenuously claims that it does not have sufficient information to make a decision. It has more than enough information.
The Irvine Co. knows that an airport at El Toro is completely inconsistent with the general plan of the city of Irvine.
The Irvine Co. knows that in a recent ballot, over 80% of the voters of Irvine voted against an airport and in favor of the non-aviation Millennium Plan.
It’s time for the Irvine Co. to defend Irvine and its residents from an airport that will surely destroy a beautiful community.
ANTHONY DRAGUN
Irvine
* As a mother of seven children, how can Supervisor Cynthia Coad with integrity vote to support the building of the El Toro airport?
Has she asked children who lived under the flight path at Los Angeles International Airport if they like to hear airplane noises all day long while at school, all night long while trying to sleep?
Has she asked them if the air they breathe is good? Has she asked their parents how they like their blighted neighborhoods?
Coad touts her integrity. Then why divert tax dollars just to promote an unpopular project?
CYNTHIA WALTERS
El Toro
* Supervisor Jim Silva wants to propose an ordinance that would make it illegal to disclose details from closed board meetings (May 7).
He is acting apparently because a confidential legal opinion by the county counsel justifying the county’s use of John Wayne Airport funds to plan an airport at El Toro was leaked to the press. He is asking for penalties of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
I think Silva has it backward. Those penalties should be for a supervisor who votes to withhold information from these meetings that the public should know about.
As it is, the three pro-airport supervisors often use these meetings to keep their unbridled spending a secret. They treat public funds as if they were their private piggy bank.
Supervisor Charles V. Smith has yet to see an expenditure he didn’t like. Nothing that is negative about a proposed El Toro airport ever gets out.
Why was the county counsel’s opinion confidential in the first place? Shouldn’t the fact that they are authorizing John Wayne profits to be spent on planning an El Toro Airport be known by the taxpayers?
Perhaps the right answer is to make closed board meetings illegal.
BARNEY DEASY
Laguna Woods
* It doesn’t surprise me to see Supervisor Jim Silva and those who favor the airport at El Toro revert to such tactics as passing a law to make it punishable to reveal discussions in the supervisors’ chambers.
What other things does he not want the public to know about?
If [airport planning money] was money over the budget, let’s spend it on schools, improving our quality of life, etc. Building a new airport does not improve the real quality of life when it creates noise and air pollution and brings blight to neighborhoods.
MARY JUDSEN
Costa Mesa
