Voters to Decide Airport Measure

Orange County supervisors agreed Tuesday to let voters decide in March the fate of the county’s seven-year plan to build a commercial airport at El Toro.

The board voted unanimously to place the anti-airport initiative before voters--a symbolic gesture in that the board’s only other option was to adopt the measure outright.

The initiative, now known as Measure W, qualified for the ballot last month after supporters gathered more than enough signatures. The Orange County Central Park and Nature Preserve Initiative would replace airport zoning at the 4,700-acre former Marine base with zoning that could allow a large urban park, university complex and sports fields.

Supporters of the measure cheered the supervisors’ vote.

“Next March fifth, the voters will say ‘Yes on W’ to save El Toro for the enjoyment of future generations,” said Bill Kogerman, chairman of Citizens for Safe and Healthy Communities, whose volunteers circulated signature petitions.

Much of Tuesday’s discussion focused on a 111-page report released last week that analyzed the impact of the measure on Orange County’s finances. Park supporters touted a finding in the report that the initiative wouldn’t raise taxes, which can only be authorized by a two-thirds countywide vote.

But the report also said there is no guarantee that a park or anything else would ever be built on the land. Consultants predicted that only about 200 acres would be developed by 2020, mostly because of a lack of funding.

“So all these grandiose things, the museums, gardens. . . ,” Supervisor Chuck Smith began.

“They’re not assumed to occur,” said consultant Craig Hoshijima of Public Financial Management Inc., which prepared the report for county Auditor-Controller David Sundstrom.

Supervisors also authorized Sundstrom to write a 500-word statement on the initiative’s effects, to be used in ballot materials.

Measure W will be the fourth airport-related vote since 1994. The airport zoning was narrowly approved that year; an attempt two years later to rescind the approval failed.

Last year, 67% of voters passed Measure F, which would have required another county vote before an airport could be built. A Los Angeles County judge later declared that measure unconstitutional. Judge S. James Otero said in his ruling that those who wanted to kill the airport should rescind airport zoning on the base--something the park initiative would accomplish.

The financial analysis estimated that the county would spend about $37 million for the first 19 years to maintain and operate a limited number of park services on the base.