El Toro Backer’s Surprise Move Delays Key Vote

A much-anticipated vote by Orange County supervisors on building an international airport at the El Toro Marine base took an abrupt detour Monday after a pro-airport board member unexpectedly voted to let the public decide the closed base’s fate.

The airport would be the first passenger airfield built in the U.S. in recent years. Regional transportation officials consider it a critical component of Southern California’s airport system, which is expected to move as many as 158 million passengers a year by 2020.

There were gasps from the audience as Supervisor Jim Silva voted with anti-airport supervisors Tom Wilson and Todd Spitzer on an amendment attached to the board’s main business of the day: certifying an environmental review to allow the airport to be built. Silva almost always votes in tandem on El Toro issues with board Chairwoman Cynthia P. Coad and Supervisor Chuck Smith. In the ensuing confusion, the board decided to table the matter for a month.

Sending El Toro’s fate back to the ballot would mark the fifth airport-related measure since voters approved the airport zoning in 1994. What the county is grappling with now is the specific project: how large an airport to build and how it would operate.

Approval of the environmental review is necessary before the Navy can turn the base over to the county for redevelopment. The airport has been the subject of numerous lawsuits, and public support for it has waned since 1994.

An El Toro airport would handle as many as 28.8 million passengers a year--making it the second-largest airport in the region next to Los Angeles International, which handled 67 million passengers last year. A majority of Orange County supervisors, including Silva, said Monday that they were inclined to build El Toro for 18.8 million passengers, leaving future boards to decide whether it should be expanded.

Monday’s meeting was expected to be contentious, but it was widely anticipated that it would end with final airport approval. Instead, that vote was postponed until Oct. 16 so pro-airport forces could regroup.

Silva, who didn’t comment immediately after his vote, said later that he wanted supervisors to discuss putting the airport on a future ballot. He had said earlier in the meeting that building the airport was “the law, and we must follow the law until the law changes.”

But Silva stopped short Monday afternoon of saying that the airport shouldn’t be built without voter approval--the exact wording of the motion he supported.

“I’ve always supported an up-or-down vote,” Silva said. “This allows the board to have that discussion.”

Attention on Silva’s actions over the next month will be even more acute because he faces election in March in a new district that added a key pro-airport city into his jurisdiction. Newport Beach, which had been represented by anti-airport Wilson, is now in Silva’s district.

As of midday, Newport Beach City Manager Homer Bludau said he hadn’t talked to Silva about his vote, but added: “That communication will take place shortly.” Newport Beach asked the county in 1985 to find another site for a second county airport to take pressure off John Wayne Airport.

Unrelated to Monday’s vote, an appellate court in San Diego is expected to decide soon whether to allow a proposed initiative to be placed on the March ballot that would replace airport zoning at El Toro with that of a large urban park.

Petitions for the initiative--the fourth El Toro-related measure seeking voter approval--were thrown out after Orange County Superior Court Judge James Gray ruled in July that the title and summary were misleading.

Wilson said later Monday that he was surprised by Silva’s vote and hadn’t discussed it with him in advance. He couldn’t say when another countywide vote on the airport should be taken or whether it should appear on the same ballot as the park measure.

“Between now and the 16th, we’ll develop a strategy,” he said.