El Toro Airport Plans: Major Stall

Orange County’s plans for transforming El Toro Marine base into a commercial airport by 2005 have hit roadblocks that are putting the process far behind schedule and giving time to foes to mount stronger attacks.

Hopes of getting air cargo flights at the base this summer have evaporated. A routine question of who will provide police protection after the Marines leave in July is stalled at a little-known commission in Sacramento. A state appeals court in San Diego will hear arguments today about why the county’s environmental studies on the airport should be thrown out.

Other impediments--including the failure to get a crucial lease from the Navy for using the airstrip in July--have backers of the largest land-use project in Orange County on edge.

“The best way for there never to be an airport is to have the field cold for a period of time,” said Gary Proctor, chairman of the El Toro Citizens Advisory Commission, the advisory body for the Board of Supervisors’ planning effort.

“Unfortunately, [El Toro] staff is falling right into the hands of that strategy,” he said.

County officials insist the delays are temporary and are not unexpected, given the massive task of planning an airport. Only two international airports have been built in the United States in the last 30 years--Dallas-Ft. Worth and Denver International.

“Any time you have a project of this size, you have [unanticipated] problems,” said Supervisor Charles V. Smith, the board’s chairman. “None of these is insurmountable.”

At the same time, other overlooked uses of the 4,700-acre base have hovered in limbo amid the raging controversy over the airfield. The Marines are scheduled to leave the base July 2.

To salvage at least some immediate use of the site, Smith negotiated a compromise with the Marines to allow undisputed facilities, such as the golf course and the officers club, to be opened to the public after the military leaves. A proposal will be submitted to Marine officials today.

South County officials against an El Toro airport have watched with glee as county staffers scrambled to deal with each roadblock.

“They have multiple problems,” said Paul Eckles, executive director of the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, a coalition of seven South County cities fighting an airport. “If they lose on any of these [challenges], their entire process will be in disarray.”

Part of the problem for El Toro planners is that they are still trying to show that the airport is the best use for the site while at the same time trying to build it, said Mark Petracca, a UC Irvine political science professor.

“It’s like planning a dinner party and preparing the food at the same time,” said Petracca, who opposes an airport. “Airport backers want an airport in place in a very short period of time, but you have huge unanswered questions that need to be answered first.”

A key unanswered question is whether the Federal Aviation Administration, which so far has stayed out of the process, will approve the county’s assumptions about departure and landing patterns. The departure path, straight north over Loma Ridge, has been criticized as dangerous by the nation’s pilots union.

Simmering concerns about whether county staff could handle all of the project’s demands became public last week when supervisors created a new position of deputy project manager for El Toro.

The county hired Michael L. Lapin, a lawyer and real estate developer who served on the Orange County Airport Commission. Among his immediate tasks is reaching agreement with the Navy on a master lease so the county can begin flights after the Marines leave and before the property is deeded permanently to the county.

Negotiations over a master lease for the base is the prime example of the delays that worry airport backers. The county had hoped to have reached agreement by now. But negotiations opened late on the lease and stalled when the Navy decided that environmental studies had to be finished first.

County planners also had hoped to tie everything up in one bundle--from the airstrip to the golf course. But delays in getting approvals for the master lease and certain flights persuaded Smith that the county should get a “bridge” lease to cover the non-aviation facilities, which also include a child development center for 280 children, horse stables, a pool and storage space.

“We want to have a presence on the base and allow these uses to continue for the community,” said Smith aide James Campbell. “It’s the right thing to do.”

Another delay came in January, when El Toro planners went to Sacramento to ask the state Lands Commission to approve the transfer of police powers for the airfield from federal to state hands.

Instead of granting a routine approval, as expected, commission staffers balked when South County airport foes lodged a lengthy protest, arguing that all environmental studies must be completed before the county is allowed to take over anything at the base.

A decision on the transfer still hasn’t been announced. Without it, the county must reach a temporary agreement with the Marines for the military to police the airfield until the county can take over.

Key airport decisions also rest with the courts. San Diego County Superior Court Judge Judith Connell ordered the county to redo part of an environmental study that provides the foundation for current work on the impact of an international airport. However, she allowed planning to continue.

Her decision left neither county officials nor airport foes satisfied, and both sides filed appeals, which are being heard today.

The court’s decision is important because the county could be forced to start its planning process--nearly three years’ worth--from scratch.

Meanwhile, the pro-airport majority on the Board of Supervisors may find itself unable to move portions of the project forward after Jan. 1.

The board’s approvals have come from a series of 3-2 votes, with every matter fought by anti-airport supervisors Todd Spitzer and Tom Wilson. In its voting, the majority has enjoyed an exemption from state law that requires a four-fifths vote to lease county property.

That exemption is critical. It expires in December, and the county has yet to seek state legislative action to extend it.

Without the exemption, the county wouldn’t be able to approve leases for cargo flights--or much else at the airport--without four of the supervisors agreeing.

Spitzer and Wilson already have promised not to vote for any cargo leases at El Toro.

County officials, however, say they are confident leases can be signed before the exemption ends.

Holding up votes is not an idle threat. The board found itself with only three supervisors eligible to vote on a contract last year for a team to manage the base’s assets on behalf of the county. Two supervisors--Smith and Wilson--had to abstain because they receive pensions from Boeing, one of the bidders.

The contract needed the votes of all three remaining supervisors, but Spitzer voted no. That forced county officials to rebid the contract, a process the lost about six months of work. When the new bids were received, Boeing was not among the bidders, so all of the supervisors were allowed to vote. The contract ultimately was signed.

Airport backers such as Proctor hope Lapin will lead the planning process out of the morass it is in, and Lapin knows the job will tax his negotiating and managing skills.

The planning process, he said, is “very complex.”