Still Wrangling Over El Toro

* Re “Airport Backers Going Over Voters’ Heads,” Aug. 25:

Assemblyman Lou Correa claims, “This bill is about housing, not about the El Toro debate.” Welcome to the house of lies.

This bill is the payoff by Correa for cooperation by Supervisors Charles V. Smith, Jim Silva and Cynthia Coad on the recent county-union sweetheart labor contract.

The contract deep-sixes the right to work on county construction projects of the 80% of all county construction workers who are nonunion.

One bill in the Legislature would restrict the right of voters to hold special elections, and a companion bill restricts the rights of cities to use Local Agency Formation Commission rules to annex land.

Both are about overriding the will of the Orange County voters. Voters repudiated the El Toro airport plan by an overwhelming 67% vote last March. So now Smith and company have hired a gun-slinger, Correa, to do in the Legislature what they cannot accomplish locally.

MICHAEL E. SMITH

Mission Viejo

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I have been reading all the letters pro and con about the proposed El Toro airport. The Newport Beach residents and south Orange County residents are complaining long and loud about the noise factor. No one wants to live near a source of constant noise.

What bothers me is that not so long ago, the Marines occupied the El Toro base and their planes took off and landed frequently without the modern noise abatement equipment that commercial airplanes are required to use.

I was out there many times selling home party plan products when conversation would have to stop because a plane was taking off or landing.

Where were these people who are now complaining about the noise then? Why did they not write letters to the editor about the noise created by the military?

Orange County desperately needs a larger airport that can support larger airplanes, planes that will have noise abatement equipment that will make them quieter than any military plane.

These complainers will find that very quickly they will no longer even notice the noise. As a child, we had train tracks at the back of our yard and within two weeks’ time of moving in could not even tell you when the trains ran.

We have now had three elections about this issue. Twice the proposed airport passed, and once, the last time, it failed. It seems to me that two out of three should mean that plans for an airport at El Toro should proceed.

To not use the existing facilities and spend millions on new construction of non-airport venues would be a gross waste of money.

GERRY M. HIME

Huntington Beach