For and Against an El Toro Airport

* El Toro airport proponents are often heard labeling residents of South County “NIMBYs.”

The “NIMBY” accusation is meant to keep us on our heels defending ourselves, as well as paint us with a simple brush stroke to the residents of North County.

However, I think it’s important to keep in mind exactly why North County originally voted for this airport: jobs and convenience.

In 1994, the jobs issue may have been valid to some. But no one today can say with a straight face that Orange County needs an airport for more jobs. We have a roaring economy without an international or expanded John Wayne Airport.

The only real issue left standing is naked greed, mostly from the behind-the-scenes business interests who want this airport so desperately and at any cost to the average citizen.

So we can either ruin our county forever or we can take a stand and defend our county by voting yes on the Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative this March.

MIKE KILROY

Aliso Viejo

* El Toro is the only prudent and logical place for another airport here in South County.

The residents of Newport Beach are only asking El Toro to help and do their share with the air transport problems, which Newport has been doing all by themselves for many years now. We are only asking help with this air traffic problem. We are not asking El Toro to do it alone; John Wayne will still be a very active airport.

We are afraid of too much traffic over the homes in the Back Bay for the safety of the residents of Newport Beach. El Toro has much more acreage to plan a proper airport strategy for the safety and well-being of residents of both communities.

Please vote for El Toro airport to be built now.

CAROLE WAGNER

Newport Beach

* It is obvious why Supervisor Jim Silva dislikes the thought of county supervisors’ meetings being open to the public and why he refuses to make appearances with Supervisor Todd Spitzer.

Silva apparently is in way over his head on the El Toro airport controversy and threatens to become a disaster to the pro-airport people that helped get him elected.

Silva has commented that if the Federal Aviation Administration decides not to allow the preferred easterly takeoffs, he doesn’t care which direction the planes take off and land.

Residents in Laguna Beach, Corona del Mar, Newport Beach, Cowan Heights, Anaheim Hills, Villa Park, and Yorba Linda who assumed they would not be impacted by airplane noise better be careful what they asked for.

Strident pro-airport folks in Newport Beach may have been led into a situation where they now could have airliners screaming over their expensive homes from two directions.

That’s probably not what they had in mind when they worked so hard to help Silva remain a supervisor.

BOB RENNIE

Mission Viejo

* On Aug. 20 I attended an “open forum” on El Toro at Irvine’s Heritage Park. When we entered the meeting room, we were handed, among other things, a bumper sticker that said “No Jets at El Toro.”

During the course of the evening, local politicos pushed the Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative, which the Orange County League of Women Voters has condemned because it gives a small minority a veto power over any project favored by the majority.

The politicos praised the Millennium Plan, which critics have called pure pie in the sky, not likely to ever be implemented.

They ripped the county for the terrible thing it is trying to do to South County, and bragged about how they are delaying the county’s planning process.

At the start of the evening we all sang “God Bless America.” A local minister then gave the benediction, during which, and I’m not kidding, he asked God to “soften the hearts” of supervisors [favoring an airport], but said nothing about opening the eyes of supervisors [opposing an airport].

Believe me, it was a pure Alice-in-Wonderland experience.

NORM EWERS

Irvine

* I am getting tired of hearing people ignore the facts about El Toro and accuse South County.

One letter writer states that the majority of people in Orange County have shown in two elections that they want an airport at El Toro.

While it is true that a simple majority did vote for these propositions, it represented maybe 10% of the total county population. To be a majority you would need at least 1.5 million people.

We are also accused of desiring to heap double or triple the noise, pollution and traffic on Newport Beach residents.

But if El Toro is built it would be about four times the size of John Wayne, with 24-hour operations, larger aircraft, much more traffic and noise.

Who is doing the heaping on here? Federal law prohibits the implementation of curfews on El Toro. John Wayne has a curfew. I think before you start accusing somebody else you should look at what you are pushing yourself.

MIKE KARN

Mission Viejo