El Toro Debaters Clash, but Few Seem Swayed

With the March 5 election just days away, Bruce Nestande and Irvine Mayor Larry Agran, the two foremost speakers on either side of Measure W--the countywide initiative that would replace an El Toro airport with zoning for a park--faced off Wednesday in a debate in Newport Beach.

Agran, aware he was in pro-El Toro airport country, joked about how his supporters wondered whether he needed a bodyguard.

But he did his best to bring cities together for a so-called Great Park at the 4,700-acre former Marine base. “This is not an Irvine choice or a Newport Beach choice. It’s a county choice.”

The pair have often gone toe-to-toe. Either because they’ve exhausted the issue, or themselves, their debate at the Orange County Coast Assn. luncheon, which drew 60 people, was more sedate than acrimonious. Judging by the audience’s tempered reaction, it’s also unlikely their arguments changed anyone’s minds.

Nestande, a former supervisor who chairs the pro-El Toro airport Citizens for Jobs and the Economy, hammered at Agran and the measure’s organizers for never telling the public how the park could be financed.

“It’s true,” Agran said. “The measure doesn’t actually say how it will be funded. But mind you, we haven’t been shown how to fund an airport either. [The county] started with $2 billion and that went to $3.2 billion and you can see that soon it’s going to be $10 billion to $15 billion.”

He said financing for the park would come from the revenue from more than 1,100 housing units, office space and agricultural leases at the former base, amounting to $25 million a year, which would be placed in an endowment to build the park.

“This can create the framework of a large metropolitan park,” Agran said. “It can have colleges, universities, soccer fields, veterans memorials, even a related cemetery. You name it, it’s all possible.”

It’s more like a fantasy, Nestande responded.

“Of the 1,100 homes or housing units there, 260 have been condemned, 600 were built in 1984 and some are sorely in need of major rehabilitation. The idea that there are these beautiful homes sitting there waiting to make revenue is fantasy. It can’t be done without considerable money being poured in to rehabilitate them.”

Nestande said that when he was on the Board of Supervisors, he and the late Thomas F. Riley helped modernize John Wayne Airport, which Newport Beach residents are fighting to keep small to limit noise and pollution.

“It was determined in the ‘80s that John Wayne Airport wouldn’t handle the future aviation needs of Orange County,” Nestande said.

But the two disagreed on whether growth mandates that an airport be built at El Toro. With a population of 3 million people and an economy that ranks 32nd among nations in gross national product, Nestande said, the county is part of a region that will demand more airports.

According to Agran, however, the county’s projected growth is estimated at only 14% through 2020. “The real growth in Southern California will be in Palmdale and the Inland Empire,” he said.

John Wayne’s runway lengths limit the types of jet aircraft that can operate there. In addition, a 1985 court agreement allows for a night curfew and limits noise, passengers and the number of daily flights. The agreement runs through Dec. 31, 2005.

If an El Toro airport is built, it will ease the airport tension in Newport Beach. But if Measure W is approved, then airlines will pressure the county for more flights at John Wayne, Nestande said.

Agran used Nestande’s remarks to solicit the help of Newport Beach residents in the audience, saying that if John Wayne’s restrictions are lifted, Irvine will also be adversely affected.

Don Willet, a Newport Beach businessman, echoed the sentiments of many in the audience: “In my opinion, the truth is always somewhere in the middle of what people are saying. I believe the [El Toro] airport is something the county needs in order to survive and grow.”