Still Circling Over El Toro

The fate of the former El Toro Marine base drew more than 100 speakers Tuesday to a packed special public hearing before Orange County supervisors still wrestling with whether to build an airport at the base after six years of planning.

Some speakers waited three hours to give two-minute speeches exhorting the board to either build the airport or abandon the project.

Since 1994, airport plans have been advanced by a three-member majority of the Board of Supervisors, but after nearly six hours of testimony Tuesday, little new information emerged.

Several speakers said public support for an airport at El Toro has dwindled to a minority since airport planning was approved in 1994. Others said overwhelming passage of Measure F in March, which restricted the county’s ability to build an airport, should have been a clear message that voters don’t want the project.

Several speakers spoke against putting another airport vote on the ballot--a nonbinding measure favored by Supervisor Jim Silva.

“If there’s going to be an election, why not make it a meaningful one?” asked Laguna Hills Councilman L. Allan Songstad Jr.

Orange Councilman Dan Slater agreed: “Don’t put this issue back on the ballot this year. Our county needs a cease-fire.”

In the end, supervisors did little more than listen, pledging to make a decision Thursday during yet another meeting about El Toro.

Before the hearing, more than 200 demonstrators primarily from South County held an anti-airport rally outside the Hall of Administration in Santa Ana. Demonstrators, many of whom were from Citizens for Safe and Healthy Communities, the group which had sponsored Measure F, held signs that read: “It’s the Airport Stupid!” and “Don’t LAX Orange County.”

Leonard Kranser, an El Toro airport critic, exhorted demonstrators to chant Measure F’s winning vote percentage as the crowd loudly answered in unison, “67.3%!”

“The supervisors seem confused with that 67.3%, because they want another vote whether to have an airport,” he said. “Well, let me tell you, 450,000 voters weren’t confused.”

But not all were against the airport.

Sarita Martinez, 23, who represented union labor, was among a dozen pro-airport labor people standing on the sidelines of the rally. Building an international El Toro airport means jobs for working families in the county.

“It’s our safety net,” she said. “Right now unemployment is very low. But who knows how it will be years from now? An airport means economic prosperity to working families more than it does for these [anti-airport] people in their Liz Claiborne and Armani clothes.”

Inside the Hall of Administration, pro-airport speakers urged supervisors to keep the airport planning process going. Some even urged a public vote after a final airport plan is chosen--an approval county officials say is six to 12 months away.

A half-dozen elected officials--all from North County--asked supervisors to study further a plan devised by a group of airline pilots, which would flip the proposed flight paths at the proposed airport. Flights would arrive from the north in the new plan, and depart to the south, turning west over undeveloped land near the coast.

The plan was presented by Villa Park Mayor Robert E. McGowan, a retired United Airlines pilot. He argued that the plan would be better received by the Federal Aviation Administration, which so far have been mum on the airport proposal.

Commenting on several Laguna Woods speakers who cited studies that sleep deprivation can shorten lives, McGowan said, “Then they want to kill seniors around Ontario or Newport Beach. You’re not being very neighborly if that’s what you truly believe.”

Attorney Barbara Lichman with the Airport Working Group, which supports an airport at El Toro, warned supervisors that even though Measure F passed in March, the board still must follow the earlier countywide vote mandating an airport at the base. To abandon the airport now and plan anything else would be a violation of that law, she said.

Costa Mesa Councilwoman Heather K. Somers urged supervisors to “base this decision on a vision of our future needs.”

Some speakers focused on the economic growth an airport would bring; others said it would destroy the county’s quality of life.

Ronald Bates, a Los Alamitos councilman and president of the Southern California Assn. of Governments, a regional planning group, said Southern California loses $1 billion in income for every 1 million passengers lost to other state airports.

“Are we really saying to all of our neighbors that, look, Orange County for whatever reason, we’re not going to meet our needs for airports, hazardous-waste facilities and jails--you do it for us?” Bates said. “That’s not a message we want to send.”

Several speakers questioned the county’s figures claiming that about 30 million travelers will want to fly to and from Orange County in 2020. Quoting other studies, the speakers--who oppose the new airport--said more realistic air travel demand can be served at existing airports in other counties.

Three speakers came from El Segundo, which is fighting plans by Los Angeles to expand Los Angeles International Airport, and from Burbank, which opposes handling L.A.’s flight overflow.

El Segundo Mayor Mike Gordon urged the county to take care of its airport travel demand within Orange County.

A representative of the San Bernardino Regional Airport Authority, which operates a cargo airport at the former Norton Air Force Base, said other Southern California airports can assume much of the county’s future airport needs.