Fight Over El Toro Takes Toll on Taxpayers

The fight over whether a new Orange County airport will be built at the closed El Toro Marine base has consumed $80 million in public funds since 1994, with more to go as the county prepares for a fourth vote on the issue next March.

Each side has spent roughly the same amount--$40 million.

For airport foes, all of the money has come from property taxes and sales taxes paid by residents in nine south Orange County cities. For airport backers, the bulk of the funds has come from parking and concession stand sales at Orange County’s existing airport, John Wayne.

The diversion of funds to the airport fight equals nearly two years’ worth of Orange County’s share of money from state taxes on cigarettes. The $80 million also would neatly cover Mo Vaughn’s six-year contract with the Anaheim Angels.

The level of public spending to influence opinions about El Toro may be a first, said Sheldon Kamieniecki, dean of political science at USC. In other places, residents may be as committed to their causes but their city governments have few, if any, resources to throw into the fight.

“When there’s so much at stake and you have the resources, this is what’s going to happen,” Kamieniecki said. “You have a real free-for-all going on.”

The south county cities’ fight to stop the airport is the most extensive effort against a public works project in California, said Irvine Mayor Larry Agran, a key promoter of a plan to replace the airport with a park.

The question of what will become of El Toro continues to consume Orange County nearly eight years after the base was placed on the federal closure list. The issue was first brought to the ballot in 1994, resulting in narrow approval for an airport.

Irvine, which borders El Toro to the south and west, has contributed more than half of the public funds spent against the airport plan. The city is promoting a complex of parks, museums, universities and wildlife habitat areas for the former air base, called the Great Park.

In attempts to sway public opinion, both sides have enlisted high-priced consultants to produce brochures and television ads. Lawyers and lobbyists have been hired. Technical consultants were placed on the payroll to chew through every statistic, chart and table.

Irvine alone has spent $15.6 million on El Toro in the last two years. Most of the money went toward studies and seeking public input for the city’s attempts to annex the base, which was closed in July 1999.

An additional $10.6 million during the same time has come from contributions from the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, made up of the cities of Irvine, Dana Point, Laguna Beach, Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Woods, Lake Forest, Mission Viejo and Rancho Santa Margarita.

Irvine and Lake Forest contributed the most to the group effort through their annual budgets, approved each June. This fiscal year, for example, the two cities contributed about $800,000 each. The other cities, also as part of budget approvals, pitched in about $400,000 each. Aliso Viejo is preparing to become the group’s 10th city member.

Since June, anti-airport forces have sent 22 brochures to 500,000 households countywide and paid for eight full-page newspaper ads.

“If we can stop the airport, it’s money well spent,” Irvine Councilman Greg Smith said last year.

The spending on the pro-airport side has gone mostly toward studies required to measure the project’s impact on the environment.

Pro-airport forces got a much later start in the public relations battle over the ballot measure expected to qualify for the March 2002 ballot. The first such spending approvals by county supervisors came in March; the county and Newport Beach approved additional expenses earlier this month. County and city officials said the combined $7.7-million splurge was an attempt to make up for spending only about $1 million the year before.

Newport’s money, like that of the south county cities, is from tax dollars. The city has its own vested interest in El Toro: The question of whether to expand John Wayne Airport hinges on whether El Toro’s airfield is turned over to commercial use.

The first mailer and cable TV ad financed by Newport Beach hit last week. The messages suggest that the proposed park at El Toro would gobble up tax money to build and maintain.

The blitz comes as the south county cities say they will curtail their spending, citing the upcoming circulation of a petition for an anti-airport initiative vote next March. In fact, they now propose to sue their opponents, claiming Newport Beach violated a state law barring public funds from being used for ballot advocacy.

The proposed measure, which would replace airport zoning with a park, would be the fourth public vote on the base.

“People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” said David Ellis, consultant to the Airport Working Group, which distributed Newport’s mailer. “They’ve spent millions and now they want to deny us our 1st Amendment right to discuss how bad this park is. What are they afraid of?”

Airport backers contend that the timing of the public-funding ban is open to interpretation. They have circulated a legal opinion that says messages about the El Toro issue can be distributed as long as the material is factual and doesn’t advocate how to vote on a specific ballot measure.

El Toro certainly isn’t Southern California’s only running battle over a public works project. But the public relations spending involved dwarfs all others.

Residents of South Pasadena, for instance, know what it’s like to fight a government intent on building. They have spent 35 years battling a proposed 6.2-mile extension of the Long Beach Freeway to connect with the Foothill Freeway in Pasadena. In 1999, the city sued Caltrans to block the project.

South Pasadena’s entire budget for the freeway fight this year: $264,000.

“I think there’s been one professional brochure that I’ve seen and it was donated by someone who did the work,” said Martha Vanrooijen, transportation manager for the city, where residents have held rummage sales to help fund the fight. “I wish we had money for public relations.”

Like Irvine, South Pasadena started spending public money after residents appealed for more help from deeper government pockets. And as with Irvine, city officials there justified the expenditures as benefiting the public good. But there often are different interpretations of just what the public good is, Kamieniecki said.

In South Pasadena, even its limited investment in the freeway fight strained the budget of an already strapped city and delayed street improvements. In Irvine, the city spent $8.6 million on park planning in the last fiscal year while its prestigious school district was $4 million in the red and failed to get a parcel tax passed.

Even the flush funds at John Wayne Airport can’t sustain unlimited spending on El Toro, airport officials acknowledged earlier this year. If the drain continues, it could jeopardize the early repayment of $300 million in bonds and result in fee increases for parking, they said.

“Ultimately, it’s a question of what is the public good and which public are you talking about?” Kamieniecki said.