Twists and Turns Continue Around El Toro’s Future

Quite a week. First we are treated to Supervisor Jim Silva dumbfounding everyone with an unexpected U-turn, approving a motion to ensure a vote of the people before work could begin on an airport. An angry Supervisor Charles Smith told the world that Silva must “have a deal” and that he had “gone south.” Then, a day later, another U-turn by Silva, in a memo saying the people should not vote on this issue.

If it was right on Monday, Jim, what made it wrong on Tuesday? Or do you just think the voters are that stupid?

Smith apparently shares Silva’s later thoughts about the intelligence of Orange County voters: “There’s no way you could have made the voters understand what they’re voting on,” he said. Really, Chuck? Strangely, you did not seem to have the same doubts about the vote on Measure A.

Are the voters of this county really stupid, as Smith and Silva believe? Or are Smith and Silva just concerned that the voters are too smart--that they understand now that the airport proposal is the worst possible use of El Toro? Come March, we’ll find out.

Michael Smith

Mission Viejo

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The events of the past couple of days have been discouraging, but in the end, I still think the anti-airport people will win. The Board of Supervisors has lost a lot of its credibility now, and the true colors of the supervisors really came out when Silva became a turncoat, for a few hours.

It certainly appeared for a few hours as though he felt that the people’s vote was important after all. Isn’t that what democracy is supposed to be about--the people deciding?

Kathy Courtney

Laguna Niguel

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Re “Think Through El Toro,” editorial, Sept. 15:

I admit I read with great prejudice. My family has lived under the flight path of John Wayne Airport since 1973, when it was a small regional airport. I take exception with your stating, “the alternative to a better airport plan will be more expansion at John Wayne, which has a short runway, is hemmed in by housing and business and has a complicated takeoff procedure. These factors mean that, while it has room to grow, it is not really a good candidate for extensive expansion.”

I strongly disagree with “has room to grow.” How would you do this? Extend the hours? Starting at 7 a.m., planes take off about every minute for 40 to 50 minutes. More flights during the day? The airlines put the flights where they are most economical to them. Do you mean run the airport 24 hours a day? If so, why shouldn’t South County share the burden? They are the cause for nearly all the pressure on this airport. NIMBYs do not want an airport at El Toro.

Jack DeLuca

Newport Beach

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Your editorial raises several valid points. As a South County resident, I am appalled that our political process is one that allows three supervisors to bully and ram an airport down the throats of the residents who would be most affected over clear and major opposition from those residents. The east-west runway alignment plan is a catastrophe waiting to happen; a north-south alignment makes far more sense, but that would put the flight pattern over their neighborhoods, which they don’t want. The job of county supervisor needs to be redefined or eliminated so that those of us who live in South County can have due process and an equal say in matters such as this, which can materially affect our quality of living.

Jack J. Lucas

Mission Viejo

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The editorial states “The recent terrorism does underscore that a part of Southern California where almost 3 million people live could be left in a national emergency with just the one major runway at John Wayne Airport, now that El Toro’s air base has closed and its future uncertain.”

After the incomprehensibly terrible tragedy our nation has suffered, it is understandable how one might be tempted to suggest we need El Toro for the security of America. But the awful truth is that an El Toro airport could never prevent this type of heinous and cowardly terrorist attack. It’s a “brave new world” we live in. Conventional rules of war no longer apply.

If anything, an international airport at El Toro would provide the ways and means for future terrorist attacks. Clearly, international airports because of their long-haul capability will be the staging area for this type of terrorist activity, and large passenger airliners fully loaded with fuel--their weapon of choice.

Sergio Prince

Laguna Hills

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Think again, dear Times. The issues in South County have nothing to do with runway configurations. It’s not safety, nor is it size or millions of passengers per year. It’s a simple bait-and-switch land grab for future high-density housing. Len Kranser and his co-conspirators don’t want any kind of airport.

So please, learn what the real issues are. And if you can figure out some configuration that the myopic folks in South County really would accept, tell us about it. But please don’t fall into their stalking horse trap of “We don’t want an airport because ....” The real reason is that they don’t want an airport of any kind and they don’t want to bear the burden of their hugely growing population’s effect on local air transportation needs.

George Margolin

Newport Beach

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Re Letters, Sept. 16:

Thank you, Gary Simon of the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, for your seven years of hard work in planning for the “necessary” El Toro airport. One can only imagine the stress of making fiction a part of a desired conclusion. Does anyone truly believe that it is easy to make overstated passenger demand or air freight numbers look factual? Or how about the difficulty of explaining away the flawed runway configuration and convincing local residents that the commercial pilots of two pilot groups are wrong?

My sympathies as well for the difficulty of explaining away the unused capacity at Jonn Wayne and Ontario; this must have been especially stressful. However, Mr. Simon, in light of your hard work, we are going to invite you and the three supervisors for a little relaxation at our new park to be built at El Toro.

Bob Rennie

Rancho Santa Margarita

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El Toro’s true takeoff patterns have not been widely advertised. Planes flying west and south will [have to] fly over Irvine and Newport Beach, parallel to the John Wayne landing and takeoff pattern. These patterns would be over half of Irvine, including UC Irvine, the only UC campus in the state that would be under a takeoff pattern, as well as most of the eastern part of Newport Beach, plus Newport Coast, which does not now hear takeoff noise.

Donald E. Stewart

Irvine

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Following Sept. 11’s horror, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department set up an emergency fire control station at the [closed] El Toro Marine air base. In addition, all law enforcement agencies were given permission to fly in and out of the base on the existing runways. This order was from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Clearly, El Toro was a needed asset in the time of national emergency.

In addition to the present cataclysm, there can be other catastrophic events such as more terrorist attacks or an earthquake. As for the latter, the Newport-Inglewood fault, which is at present showing signs of movement, could trigger a strong earthquake. In addition to the potential loss of life and property, the earthquake could cause liquefaction (turning the ground into jelly) on the northern half of the John Wayne Airport runway, effectively closing Orange County’s only commercial airport.

For Orange County to risk such a scenario, the rejection of the El Toro Airport as an alternative to tiny John Wayne Airport and to further the development of all open space in the county, is flirting with disaster.

Shirley Conger

Corona del Mar

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When the Board of Supervisors spend our hard-earned tax dollars irresponsibly, isn’t there some way we can hold them personally liable? They have already spent millions on the proposed airport at El Toro and are rushing to spend many more.

Dave Schlenker

Laguna Woods

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I rode my bicycle past William R. Mason Park in Irvine last Saturday. Most people have the day off from work. You would think that they would be overflowing the park, with every picnic table in use--every parking space taken, such is the clamor for the so-called Great Park at El Toro. But no, Mason Park was quiet--empty. Just as the Great Park will be. What a waste of taxpayer money. What a waste of a perfectly functional airport, that would dramatically reduce traffic and pollution, the very thing that those who pretend to want the Great Park say they want to reduce. One hundred seventy-five thousand people signed the Great Park petition. None of them was in Irvine’s largest park that morning.

John Jaeger

Irvine

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Re “Most Oppose Even Smaller O.C. Airport,” Sept 14:

Supervisor Cynthia P. Coad was quoted as saying “Toll roads, Interstate 5, Measure M and local power plants have been opposed in the past. Now people are happy with them.” It’s statements like this that show that Coad is out of touch with the people of Orange County.

People are not happy with the toll roads. That’s why we are not using them as expected and the toll roads have to keep raising the price. People are not happy with the traffic on the Santa Ana Freeway. The airport will only make traffic worse. I’m not happy with Measure M and the fact that it may put light rail (call it what you want, but it’s a train) in my backyard. And I don’t know anyone who wants a power plant where they live. Coad should read the polls on the airport, get out of her office and talk to the people of Orange County she represents.

Kevin Ansel

Irvine