Seeking Out the Truth on El Toro

* All the scientific sleight of hand, half-truths and understatements of impact contained in the county’s environmental impact report on El Toro cannot change the facts (Dec. 24).

With the exception of the occasional training flights or special military operations, there have been no flights into and out of El Toro between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. for well over a decade. None.

And when an airliner taking off from or landing at El Toro wakes me up every hour or more with its 90 decibels or 100 decibels of noise, all the averaging of those 100 decibels over a 24-hour period to achieve the coveted 65-decibel average won’t mitigate the noise impact to those of us in South County.

Those are real impacts based on fact. And I bet the courts will see it the same way.

DOUGLAS K. BLAUL

Portola Hills

* The three members of the Orange County Board of Supervisors favoring El Toro have generated a 10,000-page manifesto whose premise is that an El Toro airport will generate little pollution, little noise, little traffic and generally a smile on everyone’s face.

The report is reminiscent of that other manifesto, the Communist one. As I recall, that manifesto [also] contained groundless, utopian promises.

CRAIG H. BROWN

Laguna Beach

* I see in the Jan. 2 letters that Kevin Cook, Aliso Viejo, says that “the 65 CNEL criteria are a bad joke to those impacted” by the noise of a civil airport at El Toro.

And David Medvold, Irvine, fears that a civil airport at El Toro will bring intolerable “noise, safety risks, pollution and traffic congestion” to his neighborhood.

65 CNEL has been the criterion for airport community noise computability for over 30 years, prepared by a commission that included persons living near California airports and other interested parties.

California’s 65 CNEL criterion is consistent with Federal Aviation Administration and international airport community noise criteria.

65 CNEL, as a criterion value, also appears in the noise elements of both county and city general plans. Cook would now throw it out because it doesn’t comport with his personal criterion? I don’t think so.

I wonder if Cook, Medvold and other like-minded South County residents would be willing to give up flying to meet their travel needs in order to preserve the South County lifestyle they seek to protect. I think not.

This tells me that they don’t mind being part of the county’s air transportation problem, they just don’t want to be part of its solution.

They are perfectly willing to dump the “noise, safety risks, pollution and traffic congestion” of their air travels on people living nearer John Wayne and other regional airports, than they ever will El Toro.

This isn’t fair.

I think it’s high time South County politicos stopped wasting millions of taxpayer dollars fighting the county over El Toro, and started working with the county to develop at El Toro the civil airport we all need, in a way that will not place an unreasonable burden on anyone.

It can be done, you know.

NORM EWERS

Irvine

* Re “Consultant Gets to Skip Disclosure,” Dec. 20:

It is completely disgusting the way the pro-airport majority on the Board of Supervisors has manipulated and circumvented the democratic system.

By waiving the monthly reports that P&D; Consultants of Orange is legally required to make, the majority has reduced accountability and paved the way for funding public advocacy.

But we shouldn’t be really surprised. This is only the latest in a series of atrocious actions by the supervisors. From spending $3 million to determine that airplanes are loud to spending $40 million to fund pro-airport propaganda, they have been totally out of step with the majority of Orange County residents.

When will someone be able to stop them?

JOSEPH HANZICH

Trabuco Canyon

* Your article “Consultant Gets to Skip Disclosure” clearly demonstrates that the three-member pro-airport majority of the Board of Supervisors has again exhibited their arrogance.

They also exhibited their lack of understanding of the public trust they hold as elected representatives of all the people of the county.

It has been postulated that the reason behind this most recently discovered scurrilous action is to preclude a paper trail of the county’s actions that might be uncovered by anti-airport supervisors.

Or it might be uncovered by Orange County citizens who oppose not only the airport but also the repeated unethical and possibly illegal secret actions of this group of three.

Those who favor an airport at El Toro have every right to pursue their case to any legitimate and ethical end.

However, for the county supervisors to hide their actions in any matter, not only from the citizens of the county but also from duly elected members of the board who may disagree with them, is neither legitimate nor ethical.

Good government can be possible only when the actions of those doing the governing are open and aboveboard.

If this group of three can hide their actions from the people in this matter, what is to stop them from dishonest, illegal and duplicitous actions on other matters in the future? Such future unsavory conduct may very well affect those honest citizens who are pro-airport today.

Good luck in the future if you support duplicity today.

JACK WEBER

Irvine

* El Toro airport project manager Michael Lapin claims that “there’s no risk to the county” in allowing its airport consultant to submit invoices totaling $9 million without even a simple summary of what work was done to justify payment.

Outrageous! How are we to believe that? Are we just supposed to take the county’s proven unreliable word for it and trust them?

Without any documentation like that required of most contractual professionals, an independent audit could never verify the appropriate expenditures.

Even though most of the contract may have been for deliverable products, The Times article says $1.1 million was not.

The county apparently has no response to attorney Kenneth Morrison, who pointed out that there is no way to know whether illegal expenses--like public advocacy--were hidden under vague billing categories like “other conditions.”

SHEILA SENTER

Tustin

* Measure F, designed to kill the El Toro airport, has been challenged twice so far by airport supporters.

In both cases the judges allowed the measure to go forward, but indicated the challenges had strong merit. In other words, they did not want to be the ones who passed final judgment and threw out the controversial issue.

I wonder if they secretly hope the public will just vote no on Measure F to avoid the inevitable challenge putting it back into the court.

CHRIS POSNAR

Anaheim

* The Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative has survived another court challenge and currently is headed for the March ballot.

I understand the measure is on thin ice and may not survive further challenges.

If it stays on the ballot, it gives Orange County voters once again the opportunity to trounce the anti-El Toro airport people who don’t want needed infrastructure to be built in their pristine area.

DON NYRE

Newport Beach

* Just how many times will your crack staff continue to get this wrong? In “Measure F Survives Court Test” (Dec. 31), you write, “If passed, Measure F will require a two-thirds approval by voters to build or expand any jails, hazardous-waste landfills and airport projects,” which is patently false on one key point.

Measure F would require voter approval for only the largest jails (over 1,000 inmates) that are also within one-half mile of homes. Jails that do not meet both of these conditions are unaffected, period. Opponents of Measure F have deliberately downplayed this exact point in an effort to bolster their absurd “law and order” strategy against the initiative.

By unnecessarily making the same key omission, The Times both utterly mischaracterizes the intent of the initiative and does a grave disservice to its readers.

Don’t do it again.

MATTHEW RUIZ

Tustin

* Twice county residents have voted in support of an airport at the vacated El Toro Marine Corps Air Station because we need it, past and present Boards of Supervisors favor it, and now the county has come forward with a credible plan and golden opportunity to build it.

“Not In My Back Yard” anti-airport activists need to get a grip and realize that the proposed airport is an important asset for the future of all citizens in Orange County.

Their Measure F, the Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative, is just one more attempt to stop the airport and if passed would ultimately prove to be a detriment to our county.

BRENDA BLAIR

Costa Mesa