El Toro, LAX and the Quality of Life

Re “LAX Area Residents Back El Toro Airport,” Sept. 5:

Your report of large numbers of LAX-area residents appearing at the supervisors’ hearing on El Toro suggests another backfiring ploy by the pro-El Toro airport special interests. These Angelenos dramatically illustrate only the spreading deterioration that an airport brings once it gains a foothold in an area.

While we cannot but sympathize with these individuals for their plight in living near an airport, their quarrel is with their own county, not with us.

It’s no secret that the LAX World Airways (LAWA), which controls LAX as well as Ontario and Palmdale, has jealously guarded their business at LAX and want this facility to expand at the expense of other alternatives. They have discouraged airlines from serving Ontario by setting Ontario’s landing fees at a much higher rate than those at LAX. It is both stupid and obscene for the pro-EL Toro interests to use these Los Angeles residents as pawns in their campaign. But it provides a lesson for all of us. Follow the money and the power where airports are concerned. Airport expansion has very little relationship to appropriate transportation building.

Denny Harris

Laguna Niguel

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The photo of Mike Stevens and his bused-in group from Inglewood and areas around LAX was a perfect reason El Toro should never get off the ground, but the pro-airport supervisors ignore the signs. I want to thank the folks from Newport who brought Mike and his crew down; your point was well made. Airports in a residential area do nothing but destroy the quality of life for those who live in the area.

Dave Kirkey

Coto de Caza

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I attended the full Board of Supervisors’ public hearing on Sept. 5 and find that Bob McCarter’s recent letter (Letters, Sept. 9) significantly distorts what really occurred there.

Most residents of Inglewood and Westchester, rather than making the case that living near an international airport is horrible, pointed out that commercial use of El Toro has far smaller adverse impact than expansion of LAX.

Expansion of LAX would require demolition of approximately 500 homes and result in no buffer zone, whereas commercial use of El Toro requires demolition of no homes and would preserve the exiting 14,000-acre buffer zone, in addition to the current 4,700-acre base area. Speakers consistently admonished Orange County to do its fair share by shouldering their own airport needs rather than foisting them on surrounding communities, particularly LAX.

It is time for opponents of an El Toro airport to end their focus on uncompromising opposition. They must become eager participants in a process to find an El Toro airport development plan that is acceptable to them and meets the future county and regional airport needs with minimum impact.

Thomas R. Damiani

Newport Beach

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A major milestone for the county is just one day away. On Monday, the Board of Supervisors will vote on whether to approve and certify the proposed final environmental impact report (EIR) 573 and airport system master plan (ASMP) for El Toro.

The project has been challenging on many fronts. But the staff and consultants of the El Toro Local Redevelopment Authority have worked very hard for seven years not only to comply with the many layers of local, state and federal regulations required of a proposed development the size of El Toro, but also to create a balanced plan that would bring the most benefit to the residents of Orange County.

In addition, the county has consistently gone the extra mile to encourage public participation. The decision to convert the former Marine Corps Air Station into an international airport has admittedly been surrounded by controversy. The public often has a hard time accepting long-range infrastructure projects such as airports, jails and waste management systems. All are difficult, but necessary.

But we have to be forward in our thinking. No power plants were built in our state for the last decade, and now we are scrambling to meet our demand for electricity. In closing, I would like to say that building an airport at El Toro represents an opportunity to exercise our responsibility to plan for a healthy Southern California.

Gary Simon

Executive Director

El Toro Local Redevelopment Authority