Don’t Block the Runway Yet

For five decades, John Wayne Airport has been Orange County’s only airfield providing commercial passenger service. Given the latest developments and complicated planning and legal scenarios, there is a good likelihood that the airport’s one main 5,700-foot runway will have to continue to carry that burden well into the 21st century.

That’s why Newport Beach and county supervisors now seem so eager to quickly renegotiate and extend the 20-year compromise agreement that sets annual passenger limits and flight caps at the airfield.

The agreement has four years to run, until the end of 2005, but two recent developments have increased the anxiety of proponents for continuing to keep air operations at John Wayne well below the county airport’s capacity.

A state appeals court panel on Nov. 21 overturned a lower court decision and ruled that the county must put an initiative on the ballot that would rezone the 4,700-acre former Marine Corps air base at El Toro for a park, killing the county’s plan for a new commercial airport.

On the heels of that ruling came the results of a survey by Cal State Fullerton and the Orange County Business Council. The survey says that opposition to the airport plan is growing.

It’s now strong in North County cities (with 52% opposing), and anti-airport sentiment in the South County has been fervent for a long time. According to the survey, overall about 60% of county residents oppose the airport.

Another potential setback to the effort to extend the operating caps at John Wayne is the pending court challenge against a ruling by a Los Angeles judge that invalidated Measure F. That ballot initiative passed by a strong margin and would require a vote for building or expanding, among other things, an airport. If that measure is upheld, changes in the 20-year agreement may also trigger a public vote on expansion at John Wayne.

And considering other factors in the post-Sept. 11 environment, such as the decision to scale back expansion plans at LAX, there aren’t any firm figures the county can point to that pin down with much reliability what passenger needs in the foreseeable future will be. Population projections do envision growth in Orange County, but most of the big growth is envisioned for some other counties in Southern California.

There is not even a legal surety that the county can extend the agreement, given the fact that Congress banned such pacts in 1990, five years after Orange County’s was drawn. If the county tries, there is the possibility of challenges from the airlines or the Federal Aviation Administration.

So, what’s the rush?

How can the Board of Supervisors--or the public--make any well-reasoned decisions while those major factors remain unresolved?

The county says public comment on the environmental impact report and possible changes in passenger and flight cap alternatives in the agreement extension will be accepted through 5 p.m. Jan. 7, 2002. But residents probably won’t be getting final March election results on the airport vs. park plan until March 6. The result is that the county seems curiously content to let the public fly blind in offering its input on the lease extension decision.

We can understand Newport Beach’s hurry. Since the 1960s, the city consistently has exercised its parochial interest and opposition to John Wayne expansions.

But while being considerate of Newport Beach’s predicament, supervisors’ interests and responsibilities are much broader. They must balance the needs of the entire county.

What is certain is that if a new airport is rejected by voters, John Wayne will remain the only airfield to serve the business and personal needs of a major urban county of nearly 3 million residents that sees tourism as one of its principal industries.

Does it make sense then, before all the votes are in, to lock the county’s airport future in prematurely to some arbitrary operating restrictions with no room for any expansion for another 10 years? No.