Diverse Opinions Take Wing on El Toro Airport

Only those completely unaware of the facts surrounding the proposed El Toro airport could trumpet the latest press release from the Air Line Pilots Assn. as a significant change in position (“Pilots Union Eases El Toro Opposition,” March 1).

The union has never opposed an airport at El Toro per se. What it has objected to is the county’s recklessly unsafe plan to use the existing runways in its haste to build an airport, any airport, at El Toro.

This news just reinforces what the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority and other airport opponents have said all along:

1. The turnkey airport plan offered to support passage of Measure A is unsafe and unworkable.

2. The safest plan is for takeoffs to the west or north, over Irvine, Tustin, Orange and (gasp!) Newport Beach. While safest for the flier, this is the most politically dangerous route, a fact the county has done its best to hide.

3. Orange County cannot support two commercial airports within seven miles of each other, either in terms of safety or economics. John Wayne Airport would have to close, which has been the unstated goal of Newport Beach since Day One.

The only piece missing from this story is a full analysis of the alleged air travel demand generated by Orange County. John Wayne operates at barely half its design capacity under the most restrictive flight rules in the nation. When these limits expire in 2005, John Wayne will have more than adequate air-travel capacity for all of Orange County.

Despite attempting to dupe the reader into believing there is a sudden groundswell of support for El Toro, The Times has again confirmed what airport opponents have known all along: The proposed airport at El Toro is unneeded, unwanted and clearly unsafe.

RICHARD SODEN

Lake Forest

* Re “Yet Another Division in Airport Equation,” Feb. 23:

The El Toro Reuse Planning Authority may now sue Newport Beach and the county to block extension of the limits to full use of John Wayne Airport. Newport claims that growing Orange County air passenger demand will require a 28-million-passenger airport at El Toro, but insists that the county maintain the limits and curfew at John Wayne, set to expire in 2005, which limit use of our county airport to half its current capacity. Build El Toro, but continue limits at John Wayne? Right.

This fight has never been about the bogus claim of air passenger growth. It is about Newport wanting all commercial air traffic at John Wayne moved to El Toro.

County growth over the next 20 years (to “build-out”) is projected at just 13%. Even an air passenger growth rate triple that of the population growth rate would result only in an added 5 million annual passengers by 2020, an amount easily accommodated at John Wayne while retaining the current nighttime curfew.

Wake up, Newport; the entire county is on to your little scam.

MICHAEL SMITH

Mission Viejo

* We have been living with John Wayne Airport for 40 or more years. It began as a small-plane airport. Times changed, and it grew up, as most things do. Extended runways brought bigger planes, and nearby residents began to suffer with noise and houses that shuddered.

Time passes, and again we grow. Now the runways have extended to take on jet planes, and the noise skyrockets. The houses no longer just shudder; they begin to get cracks in the walls. Of course the noise goes up exponentially.

It is time for someone else to take a share. That is discrimination in its worst form. Lake Forest is nice, but it doesn’t have special privileges.

We have El Toro, Camp Pendleton and March Air Force Base. Do not make the mistake of thinking that John Wayne Airport will save them. In 10 years, it will start again unless we face the facts today. If the “open border” becomes a reality, it will be unbelievable. So somebody had better “see” the future as it really exists and make a decision on one of these other three options.

JANICE DAVIDSON

Costa Mesa

* I take great exception to the pro-El Toro airport letters published Feb. 18 in response to your Feb. 4 editorial, “El Toro’s Deep Divide.” The three pro-airport letters are perfect examples of hypocrisy and purposeful distortions of the facts and truths about the entire El Toro process.

Norm Ewers states that it is the South County cities that are misleading the public. Sorry, it is a proven, published fact that the county attempted to deceive its citizens about the significant levels of air pollution such an airport would inflict upon the residents of all of Orange County. Judge Judith McConnell recognized this deception and held the county financially responsible.

Supervisors Chuck Smith, Cynthia Coad and Jim Silva appear to find the county’s dishonesty as a strategic necessity in their futile attempt to foist an airport on the citizens.

Marion Krone states that the Orange County supervisors “represent the majority of citizens.” Excuse me, it was Supervisors Coad, Smith and Silva who had the audacity to challenge the measure and ignore the will of the voters. Just what is her idea of majority representation?

William Kearns states that a “tiny percentage of Orange County residents” are attempting to disenfranchise the majority of Orange County. I guess the 67% of voters who supported Measure F must fall into his definition of fuzzy math.

I joined the airport fight six years ago, and I have one simple statement to these three that I have reiterated many times since my original presentation to the supervisors in 1996: No Airport, No Compromise, Never.

EDWARD F. GOGIN JR.

Trabuco Canyon

* Re “El Toro’s Deep Divide”: The Times would be well-served to issue an editorial that clearly takes the position of being in the “No-on-El Toro” camp instead of disingenuously nibbling around the edges while pretending to be issuing unbiased commentary.

Having come clean, people might take you seriously. Then you could use the newly earned influence to convince us misguided residents around John Wayne of the enormous benefit to us posed by the “Great Park.” After all, when life becomes unbearable around John Wayne, we can all pitch tents there.

BOB BLACK

Newport Beach