O.C. Residents Favor Park, Not Planes, Poll Says

Less than a month before Orange County supervisors take a final vote on the fate of the former El Toro Marine base, a new poll shows that most county residents continue to prefer building a park there instead of an airport.

Only 35% of registered voters in the independent Pacific Opinions poll said they support the airport--the use preferred for El Toro by three of the five supervisors. The group, based in Irvine, queried 1,444 county voters this month.

The results are similar to responses to a Chapman University survey in May that found that 65% of Orange County residents favored the park. Both polls indicate that residents have firm opinions about the county’s plans for an airport.

But opposition to the airport doesn’t mean an easy road for the park, said Christian Collet, director of the Pacific poll and a visiting UC Irvine professor in political science. Most voters see the park as an antidote for the airport, rather than supporting it outright, he said.

Moreover, an analysis of the poll results showed that primary election voters and those who vote by absentee ballots--voters more inclined to participate in a future election--were more likely to vote against a measure replacing the county’s airport plan with a park.

“Opinion is pretty stuck against the airport, but we’re only beginning to unpeel the layers of thought on the park,” Collet said. “What we’re seeing is more anti-airport than it is pro-park.”

The reluctance to fully embrace the park may be rooted in the county’s traditional loathing of new taxes. Most voters--52%--said they believe that taxes would have to be raised to build the park. Six in 10 voters said they wouldn’t pay that extra tax.

Another 41% of voters said they wouldn’t visit a park at El Toro, even though a vast majority said the county should provide more open space. The poll was paid for by Pacific Opinions, which surveys public attitudes in Orange and San Diego counties.

County voters approved an airport at the Marine base in 1994, five years before the base closed. In 1996, supervisors approved further study of an airport to serve 28.8 million people a year by 2020. A final vote by supervisors on that airport plan is scheduled Sept. 14.

The city of Irvine and a coalition of anti-airport groups are touting a “Great Park” plan for El Toro through a proposed ballot measure they hope to place on the March ballot.

The plan proposes to eventually build a park twice as large as Balboa Park in San Diego and as extensive as Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.

This month, a Superior Court judge ruled that voters may have been misled into signing petitions for the measure, a measure called the Orange County Central Park and Nature Preserve Initiative.

But an appellate court Friday refused to stop county officials from accepting the petitions and agreed to review the lower court ruling.

Meanwhile, petitions for a third option for El Toro began circulating last week. That plan calls for a different configuration of landings and takeoffs at a future airport.