Initiative Aimed at Airport Plan a Lock for Ballot

A measure aimed at stopping plans for a commercial airport at the former El Toro Marine base is headed for the March ballot, the Orange County registrar of voters said Tuesday.

“It’s clearly going to make it,” Registrar Rosalyn Lever said of the measure, dubbed the Safe and Healthy Communities Act.

The initiative required verified signatures of 71,206 registered voters to go before voters in the March primary. Supporters gathered about 190,000 signatures.

Lever said she plans to announce final certification Thursday and send the initiative to the Board of Supervisors for placement on the ballot.

“I’m obviously very pleased, but I’m not surprised,” said Laguna Hills attorney Jeffrey Metzger, chairman of the citizen group formed to promote the measure. “We’ve been expecting this.”

The initiative, if passed, would require a two-thirds vote of the public before the county could build or expand airports, large jails within a half-mile of homes, or hazardous-waste landfills.

Airport opponents hope to use the measure’s passage to force a third vote on the county’s proposal to build an international airport on the base, which closed in July.

Airport supporters, meantime, have challenged the ballot measure in court, saying among other things that it is unconstitutional. A judge last week set a Nov. 19 hearing.