Multiple Choice: El Toro Is Curse, Boon, Danger or Hypocrisy

Re “Not-My-Airport Syndrome,” editorial, May 14:

I agree with the two basic conclusions reached in this editorial: It is unwise to limit Orange County’s aviation capacity, and there is capacity now at John Wayne to handle significantly more passengers than the supervisors say they want.

In fact, John Wayne Airport can serve at least 14 million passengers annually without nighttime flights, runway extensions or a new terminal. The tax dollars invested in this airport should be fully exploited before a new airport is built.

However, the editorial errs badly in stating: “Each year, 12 million of the 68 million air passengers flying into Los Angeles International Airport pick up their luggage and start traveling again--to Orange County.”

Not true! The 1993 LAX Air Passenger Survey found that 62% of passengers (29.6 million) originated from the greater Los Angeles area. Just 14% of these (4.1 million) were attributable to Orange County. Using these same percentages with the LAX of today, no more than 5.9 million LAX passengers could be attributed to Orange County.

LAX will continue to attract passengers from surrounding counties as long as it offers significantly more flights to more destinations and nearly all international flights. This will continue with or without a new airport at El Toro.

Michael Smith

Mission Viejo

You continue to focus on the NIMBY issue while avoiding other environmental matters related to the El Toro airport issue.

When will you ask hard questions about polluted ground water under the proposed Great Park and the potential for increased cancer risk? When the military has poisoned ground water elsewhere by dumping fuel and chemical solvents, the solution has often been to build an airstrip over the problem. Why? Because the cost is prohibitive to clean toxic plumes to a level of safety that parks and other projects should require.

I’m sincerely concerned for all those smiling children we keep seeing in those cheery Great Park pamphlets.

Why aren’t you?

Michael Leigh

Orange Coast College

Costa Mesa

Re “O.C., Cities Have Spent $80 Million on El Toro,” May 14:

The latest appropriated expenditures from the pro-airport side are $7.7 million. Of that total, the $4 million shamelessly approved by the Board of Supervisors’ majority of Cynthia Coad, Charles Smith and Jim Silva is definitely an immoral act. That taxpayers’ money belongs to all of Orange County cities, including, of course, all of the southern cities.

Only the $3.7 million is legitimate, as it belongs to the Newport Beach taxpayer alone and, ironically, without any financial help from the rest of the northern cities--not even from its own vocal pro-airport neighbors, Costa Mesa and Anaheim.

By contrast, the $7.3-million anti-airport money is from the combined contributions and total cooperation of all southern cities.

Sam Castelo

Irvine

How exquisitely far along could Newport Beach and South County be together right now if they had spent the $80 million (that only resulted in building two massive forts) into planning and constructing a high-speed train to a remote or airport-hungry area where a large enough facility could relieve the pressure on John Wayne, LAX, Burbank and San Diego? Why all the disagreement and shameful wasting of funds?

Katy Wisniewski

Laguna Niguel

Recently I wrote the supervisor for my district, Charles Smith, asking him why he thought that the people of Orange County need an airport more than we need a Great Park. To date, I have had no reply. I reckon he thinks my vote is not important enough to be given the courtesy of an answer.

The Newport Beach brochure about El Toro has arrived. Its main focus is that tax money will be required to make a Great Park. Seeing as how an airport will take tax money too, I would have had more respect for the brochure if it had discussed reasons why Newport Beach thinks the people of Orange County need an airport more than we need open space.

Juanita Matassa

Santa Ana

I was raised in New York City. I grew up wise to the ways of the big city, but I also embraced it. Although there were some who clung to their asphalt parks and barely ventured out of their neighborhood, for some blessed reason my friends and I knew there was something better out there. Lengthy subway rides took us to ice skating in Central Park, the Egyptian Room at the Metropolitan Museum and multiple cultural exposures that still remain a part of who we are today.

As we grew older, a train ride to Washington, D.C., included the awesome wonders of the Smithsonian, and a trip to Arlington Cemetery humbled us.

Years passed and I found myself raising two daughters in Orange County--safe, mild weather, beaches, snow in the mountains and lots of activities to offer little girls. It has been great living here and I wouldn’t choose to live anywhere else.

However, the fact remains my daughters grew up without the opportunities afforded me a generation before. Distant trips to Los Angeles and San Diego only emphasized the limited cultural opportunities here in Orange County.

Finally there is the opportunity to provide Orange County with a centrally located Great Park to enrich our lives and the lives of our children and to provide for the generations to come. Support the Great Park, get involved with what it will be and make Orange County the standard that others live by.

Fran Starling

Fountain Valley

I for one am sick of all the going to and fro over El Toro airport and a “Great Park” and all the taxpayer money being spent to advocate one or the other.

My solution is for the county to lease the airport to the Capistrano Indians and have them open a casino. Then the state and the county can tax it and pay for a light-rail system to Ontario Airport. This will provide economic development and traffic relief.

John Dowden

Irvine

Re “The El Toro Debate: Trees or Tarmac for the Former Marine Base?” Letters, May 13:

The letters contained the following phrases from anti-El Toro letters: (1) “. . . the Board of Supervisors has shown that they have become merely advocates for their own personal agendas and not advocates for the taxpayers . . .”; (2) “. . . they have no problem shaving a few years off seniors’ lives by cramming a massive, polluting airport . . .”; (3) “John Wayne Airport is capable of growth and, with innovative planning, can satisfy future airport needs of Orange County.”

These are classic hypocritical phrases of which the writers should be ashamed. Thank you, Los Angeles Times, for publishing and exposing them.

Bob Black

Newport Beach