More Turbulence Over El Toro Airport Plans

Unless the ruling by Judge James Gray is overturned, the pro-El Toro airport group, with its three supervisor allies, may have achieved its goal to keep the Great Park initiative off the ballot in March.

By doing so they will be invalidating the signatures of tens of thousands of people and the dream of owning a place of beauty in the center of Orange County. That dream of a Great Park--on par with many of the great parks of the world--cannot be erased from people’s minds.

The war over El Toro will drag on for years to come. The pro-airport people would be wise to join the officials in Washington, D.C., who are looking for a solution at Ontario and at other airport sites in the Inland Empire.

Margot Roseman

Mission Viejo

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Anti-El Toro voters are trying to put an initiative on the ballot that will stop the proposed airport, but there is one legal section required by law to be prepared by county counsel, who is pro-airport.

Then the airport supporters sue to throw out the initiative, stating that the legal section prepared by the pro-airport county counsel is faulty. What next? A judge named James Gray, who is from Newport Beach, the only city in Orange County that is overwhelmingly pro-airport, is selected to hear the case.

Does Gray disqualify himself? Heck no, he just goes ahead and rules for the airport supporters and stops Orange County from voting.

Dave Schlenker

Laguna Woods

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Now that the central park Initiative has been thrown out by the court, it may be wise to reflect on how such a fraudulent measure almost got onto the ballot.

Apparently no one except lawyers read the initiative, which would have made all unincorporated areas in the county immediately available for development.

Clearly the signers of the measure cannot swear they knew what they were signing. So they fell right into the hands of developers who always want to build and build and build. I think the scam was perpetrated by the loose cannons of South County whose vision is clouded by their hatred of an El Toro airport and which will all clear up once the jets begin to fly.

Donald Nyre

Newport Beach

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The judgment by Newport Beach resident Judge James Gray is unsound.

Gray’s ruling denies the right of every California citizen to petition his or her government, especially in this case, in which the majority of the public is at odds with its county government.

In the case of the latest Great Park petition, it was the legal responsibility of county counsel to provide a title and summary for the measure. The failure of the counsel to perform competently has led to this suit. Gray’s ruling punishes the majority public for the incompetent acts of the counsel. The ruling wrongly nullifies the valid signatures of thousands of county voters needed to qualify this measure for the March primary.

Furthermore, the ruling instructs the initiative planners to begin collecting signatures for a new petition under a new title with the same content.

The Orange County government has an obligation to support the constitutional right of county voters to introduce petitions. The judiciary has an obligation to ensure that this petition process is not corrupted by the actions of our county government. It is essential, for the preservation of constitutional rights of the public, to determine whether this is a case of political collusion or simple incompetence on county counsel’s part.

Either way, to make reparations the supervisors should put this initiative on the March ballot. Are the Orange County supervisors ethical enough to do even that?

Martin Connair

El Toro

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A Newport Beach group founded by George Argyros sues the county and invalidates the signatures of more than 50,000 petitioners.

Has any other ballot measure had such trouble qualifying? This smells unconstitutional and is probably even worse. If the supervisors have a shred of decency, they will qualify this initiative, as it was county counsel’s error that created this mess.

Mary Schwartz

Santa Ana

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The actions Aug. 7 of two pro-airport supervisors, Cynthia P. Coad and Jim Silva to not decide on an appeal of Judge Gray’s decision on the Great Park initiative, as recommended by county counsel, are despicable.

They are well aware of the time constraints, the hard work of many people collecting signatures and the more than 130,000 signatures collected, yet they continue to thwart the will of the people of Orange County.

Dino Roman

Lake Forest