Firm’s Mission: Convert Voters to Support an El Toro Airport

A Sacramento consulting firm will oversee a $5-million, 15-month public relations blitz to sell Orange County residents on the need for a new airport at the retired El Toro Marine base.

David Townsend of Townsend Raimundo Besler & Usher was told Wednesday that his company has been selected, said Art Bloomer, executive director of the Orange County Regional Airport Authority. The authority’s coalition of 13 pro-airport cities will manage the campaign.

The Townsend firm was the architect of the successful 1994 Measure M campaign, which led to Orange County voters approving--on the third try--a half-cent sales-tax increase for transportation projects.

A final contract with Townsend for the El Toro work will be brought to the authority’s board of directors for approval at its April 11 meeting, Bloomer said.

“We want to get moving as quickly as possible,” he said. “We’re going to start educating the Orange County public on the benefits of an airport.”

The $5-million campaign, authorized last month by Orange County supervisors, represents an unparalleled burst in county spending to promote the airport. It coincides with an effort by airport foes to place another measure--the fourth--on the March 2002 ballot in hopes of finally stopping the airport.

In the last two years, South County cities opposed to the proposed airport have spent more than $15 million to fight it. This week, Irvine voted to extend public relations contracts with two of its main lobbyists in Orange County and Sacramento.

Irvine has spent about $10 million over the last two years promoting a “great park” at El Toro instead of an airport. Most of the money has gone to the Newport Beach firm of Arnold Forde & Stu Mollrich, which helped develop the park concept through polling, direct mail and surveys.

The city also approved extending its contract with Mike Roos & Co. of Sacramento to lobby for the park in the state’s capitol. Roos, whose pay bumps to $540,000, is a former state Assembly leader who spearheaded the successful passage of last year’s statewide campaign-reform measure, Proposition 34.

Townsend acknowledged that his firm would be stepping into the county’s most contentious public-policy issue since the 1994 bankruptcy. Support for the new airport has slumped because of the aggressive campaigning by South County opponents.

Polls last year showed that only a third of the county’s registered voters supported the airport; a majority of residents said future airport growth should occur at John Wayne Airport.

Townsend said he intends to propose a “fact-based, straight-forward” information campaign telling residents the benefits of the new airport and why it is important to Orange County.

“Our intention, and what we said from the start, is that public education is important and it’s important coming from people who know about airports,” he said. “If government believes something is important, they have an obligation to educate the public.”

Airport foes celebrated last year with the passage of Measure F, which called for two-thirds voter approval before the county could build an airport, a large jail near homes or hazardous-waste landfills. The county suspended its airport advocacy spending in April but resumed it again in December when a Los Angeles County judge invalidated Measure F as unconstitutional. That decision is under appeal.

Voters narrowly approved an airport at El Toro in 1994, a year after the base was targeted for closure. The Marines left in July 1999.