Opening Minds on El Toro Reuse

After the overwhelming passage of Measure F, the ballot initiative requiring that plans for a new airport at El Toro be approved by two-thirds of voters, the big international airport juggernaut has faltered and, recently, undergone modification. On two important points, however, county leaders have demonstrated that they still don’t understand the need for a fundamental change in the composition of the base reuse planning agency.

The first instance came on the question of whether the county executive officer, Jan Mittermeier, would retain the El Toro project in her portfolio. Mittermeier outlasted a movement to oust her after the Measure F vote. The controversy over her tenure covered leadership issues that went beyond the airport planning. But a central concern was her insistence on retaining control of El Toro, or whether that responsibility would be given to someone else.

The Mittermeier base reuse planning connection and her overall job performance became confusing and intertwined. The crisis fractured--and for a time reshaped--the usual 3-2 split on the Board of Supervisors on the El Toro airport project. In recent days, anti-airport Supervisor Tom Wilson was in the awkward position of explaining to allies in South County why he voted to retain a chief executive officer who so clearly represented the pro-airport wing of county government.

What got lost in this discussion over Mittermeier’s prerogatives was how pointless it was to debate who would arrange chairs on the deck of a hobbled ship. If the county pressed forward with plans to approve its current airport proposal, it didn’t matter which executive was designated to be in charge. After seven years, airport planning produced a proposal that lost the public relations war, relinquished credibility, and could be implemented only by a cynical county government leadership.

The second instance came last week, when supervisors voted to entertain other alternatives for El Toro. This development was meaningful, but had it occurred in 1994, it would have been a defining moment. An earlier decision to go that route would have signaled that the Board of Supervisors was up to the job of approaching base reuse with the requisite open mind. The board now has been embarrassed and weakened into taking small steps in the direction of alternative uses.

This has come late in the game, and could be truly significant. However, it is important one way or another that southern cities be included directly in the planning process and not merely as spectators. For that, a reconstituted Local Redevelopment Authority still may be needed, as we have argued previously.