Orange County Officials Vote to Complete El Toro Review

Orange County supervisors jump-started their troubled plan to build a commercial airport at the former El Toro Marine base, voting late Thursday to complete a stalled environmental review and then--unless a judge decides otherwise--to send the project back to the ballot one more time.

The vote revived the moribund airport plan, which appeared ready to collapse in March after county voters gave an overwhelming 67.3% approval to an initiative that severely restricts the county’s ability to build it. But a Los Angeles County judge blocked a key portion of the measure earlier this month, rallying pro-airport forces.

The board’s three-member, pro-airport majority indicated Thursday that expanding opportunities for future air travel in Orange County is simply too important, and the gift of the 56-year-old Marine airfield too propitious, to abandon the six-year effort.

While acknowledging the resilient anti-airport sentiment, particularly in south Orange County, the board majority insisted that an airport can be built that responds to future needs without destroying the southern cities’ suburban ambience.

But pro-airport supervisors did make an important if symbolic concession Thursday: They agreed to consider studying a nonairport plan for the base as intensively as a future airport, as well as to examine a suggestion by airline pilots to reverse the flight paths.

“We’ve heard a lot of different things brought up [and] we owe it to the people in Orange County to study some alternatives,” said board Chairman Chuck Smith, an airport supporter.