Airport Plans, North and South

* Re “Hawaii Flights Approved, but Don’t Pack Yet,” Feb. 7:

So Bruce Nestande thinks that South County opposition to an El Toro international airport is irrational. What about those who are opposed to John Wayne’s expansion? Are they irrational as well? Anybody who does want a new or expanded airport to destroy his community is irrational, Bruce. And I’m not being paid to promote this view, as you are.

KURT PAGE

Laguna Niguel

* A reminder to Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Cynthia P. Coad regarding the proposed Hawaii flights from JWA: Better take a flight aboard the airline before permitting such flights. From past experience flying Aloha and from all the consumer reports available, Aloha has one of the worst “seat pitch” (distance from seat to seat) ratings of any airline. Just wondering: Is the prospect of a five-hour flight aboard a very cramped airline plus spending extra money to do it worth the convenience of not driving to LAX? Not!

RANDY NAKASHIMA

Yorba Linda

* Professor John L. Graham has just discovered four old Southern California Assn. of Governments (SCAG) reports evaluating Camp Pendleton as an alternative airport site (Orange County Voices, Dec. 31). He states that Pendleton is back on the table and represents the people’s choice. He is wrong.

Pendleton is not the Marine Corps’ choice and therefore, it is not “back on the table” despite quoted comments by two pro-airport supervisors. The Marine Corps is “unequivocally opposed” to siting an international airport at Camp Pendleton. This official Marine Corps position is not likely to change.

It is reassuring, however, to note that Graham agrees new airport capacity is needed. His only problem is where to locate it, so long as it is not in Orange County. He would export Orange County’s air travel demand to at least 40 miles from Irvine. Expanding LAX is OK as long as Orange County, read Irvine, doesn’t have to see or hear an airplane.

There is an easier solution, professor. It’s called El Toro. It has been an airport for more than 50 years and is ours for the asking.

El Toro is not unsafe. El Toro is needed. El Toro is certainly wanted by air travelers.

Forget Pendleton. El Toro is the airport of choice.

GEN. ART BLOOMER

(USMC Retired)

Executive Director

Orange County

Regional Airport Authority

* Now that Measure H has been found to be constitutional (“O.C. Tobacco Initiative Is Upheld--For Now” Feb. 15), how do we reconcile the finding that Measure F is unconstitutional?

Beyond the question of multiple subjects, which is very subjective, what exactly is there about F that makes it unconstitutional, whereas H is not?

We’ve seen the flagrant differences in rulings between courts during the recent election fiasco in Florida. Clearly, in Florida the judges were not all working out of the same playbook. How can outcomes so vastly different be rationalized? Were the courts in the H and F cases working out of the same playbook? Can a citizen, or in this case, a county full of citizens, approach the court confident that justice will be truly and fairly done? Or are our courts actually a system by which an elite, “chosen” few can each independently twist and “interpret” the law according to their personal preferences?

As Measure F proceeds to an Orange County appeals court, an entire county will be watching to see whether the constitution and our initiative process is treated as frivolously here as in Florida.

MICHAEL SMITH

Mission Viejo

* I am amused to see that two school districts are willing to go to court (“Tustin Plan Approved by Navy,” Feb. 15) to build kindergarten-to-college schools two miles from the end of an active airport runway. Have the anti-airport zealots misled me? How come they tell us that the toxins and fuel currently in the ground at El Toro will be a danger and unbearable cost to the entire county if we convert an airport to an airport, but converting an airport to a school should not be a problem?

The city of Irvine has spent millions of my tax dollars sending out slick brochures telling of the impending doom to our children if El Toro airport is built, yet Irvine’s school district will build a K-8 school at the converted Tustin base. Likewise, Tustin’s district will build not one but two K-8 schools and a high school, while Santa Ana and the South Orange County Community College Districts are going to fight a legal battle to build schools there.

SHARON HUNT

Irvine