Election Day Also D-Day for El Toro?

The November presidential election could play a pivotal role in the fate of an airport being planned at the closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, as decisions about the base’s future loom in Washington.

While the county wrestles with growing opposition to its airport plan, approved conceptually by voters in 1994, the federal government is on a separate schedule to dispose of the 4,700-acre base and turn over the property to the county.

That’s where timing is critical: Defense and Navy officials who have dealt with El Toro since the airport plan was submitted in 1996 probably will be leaving after January 2001 with the arrival of a new administration in Washington, regardless of party.

Many of those same officials want the property’s fate resolved before they leave and have grown increasingly frustrated by the years of controversy and uncertainty. Their decisions over the next five months could have an enormous impact on the ability of either pro- or anti-airport forces to fulfill their visions for the base.

Randall Yim, deputy undersecretary of Defense for installations, said at a recent conference of military base redevelopers in Monterey that the federal government’s obligation is separate from decisions by local authorities about new uses for the base.

Federal officials must sign documents turning over the property, but the new use is defined by local officials, he said. The only caveat is that the property must generate economic activity, unless it is given for a “public benefit” use, such as an airport, a university or housing for the homeless.

In the case of Orange County, the federal government has been on track for four years to turn over the El Toro base for a regional airport, based on the 1994 countywide vote. If the community changes its mind after El Toro is handed over, the onus probably will fall on the county to pay any additional costs for the change in plan, Yim said.

“It may be that the change in cleanup standards is borne by the entity that changes [the redevelopment plan],” he said.

That could mean millions of dollars for additional cleanup to ready the base for commercial, residential or even park use rather than an airfield. With more than four years invested, federal officials are plowing ahead with the county’s airport plan, despite an ordinance passed by voters in March that could derail it.

There are other financial considerations: Though the federal government is obligated to clean up all military installations--and El Toro is one of the country’s most polluted bases and a federal Superfund site--that responsibility doesn’t come with a timetable. Cleanup costs are budgeted, and Congress just cut $150 million from the Defense Department’s cleanup fund.

The concerns of residents near El Toro about the cleanup and base redevelopment were shared by those attending the annual meeting of the National Assn. of Installation Developers, an organization of local governments, consultants and developers working on plans for closed military bases.

Overall, about 19 Navy, 16 Army and five Air Force installations have been shuttered in two rounds of base closures that began in 1990. El Toro and Tustin’s Marine helicopter base went on the list in 1993 and closed in July 1999.

The message from a panel of Defense Department officials, speaking to anxious local officials at the conference, was blunt: What happens--and when--at closed military bases depends on the money available and the officials in charge of making the decisions, who can change.

The timing of those decisions also is important because the federal government has an obligation to taxpayers, said Leon Panetta, a former White House chief of staff who was instrumental in the construction of a state university at the former Ft. Ord in Monterey.

When controversy keeps a base from being turned over, he said, it costs the federal government more money within a military service whose role is defense of the country, not being a long-term landlord.

“There is a federal responsibility to make sure that you don’t lose the economic development capacity of the property,” Panetta said.

Navy officials were more circumspect about how the ongoing controversy over the airport could affect the El Toro property and the cleanup plan.

William J. Cassidy, deputy assistant secretary of conversion and redevelopment, said the Navy is monitoring events in Orange County and intends to work with local officials.

“The Navy is a patient organization,” Cassidy said. “I think these matters will work themselves out.”