Anti-Airport Measure Is Cleared

An initiative that would force a third vote on plans for an airport at El Toro was certified Thursday for the March ballot.

Orange County Registrar Rosalyn Lever counted 71,490 verified signatures out of 109,629 signatures submitted by proponents of the Safe and Healthy Communities Act.

An additional 83,000 signatures were submitted by initiative organizers but were not counted, Lever said. They were on petitions that have been challenged in court by the city of Newport Beach and Citizens for Jobs and the Economy, a pro-airport group.

“I think it’s interesting that this ‘massive’ effort just squeaked by,” said David Ellis, a consultant for the Airport Working Group, which supports an El Toro airport.

Airport opponents were jubilant nonetheless.

“We made it by a landslide,” petition organizer Jeffrey Metzger, an attorney in Laguna Hills, said Thursday.

The measure, if passed in March, would require a two-thirds vote for the county to build or expand airports, large jails near homes and hazardous-waste landfills. It was written by a coalition of South County cities fighting the county’s plans for a commercial airport at the 4,700-acre Marine base, which closed in July.

Attention focused on the number of signatures Thursday because 71,206 were needed to qualify, meaning the margin for certification was just 284. Lever said she verified the signatures on a “first pass” of the names, so more scrutiny could uncover names that had been mistakenly discounted.

Orange County supervisors now must place the initiative on the March ballot. The board can vote to delay for 30 days while officials complete an economic analysis. The matter is scheduled to be discussed by supervisors at their Nov. 2 meeting.