Supervisors to Vote on John Wayne Restrictions

Orange County supervisors will vote today on extending landmark restrictions on the size of John Wayne Airport--just one week before county voters will decide whether to scrap plans to build a new airport at El Toro.

The deciding vote is expected to come from Supervisor Todd Spitzer, who will be calling in from Washington, D.C. He flew there Monday to attend meetings with federal highway officials in his role as chairman of the Orange County Transportation Authority.

The unusual link by speakerphone into today’s meeting is allowed under state law, as long as a meeting notice is posted where Spitzer will be making the call--from the office of Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach).

Spitzer was traveling Monday and couldn’t be reached for comment. But county staffers and officials with cities beneath the flight path for John Wayne said he indicated during heavy lobbying in recent weeks that he would support extending restrictions at the airport. The limits--contained in an agreement ratified by a federal judge in 1985--are set to expire on Dec. 31, 2005.

Under the agreement, the airport can handle up to 8.4 million passengers a year through 2005; last year, about 7.3 million passengers used John Wayne. The airport also is limited to 73 daily flights by the loudest aircraft. Bonus flights allowed to airlines using quieter jets bump the flights up to about 130 a day.

The plan supervisors favor is one promoted by Newport Beach. It would allow a small increase in passengers in exchange for capping the size of John Wayne through 2015. The number of passengers would rise to 9.8 million a year and regulated flights would increase to 85; the airport would also add four gates, to total 18.

If approved by Newport Beach, the county and two Newport Beach citizen groups--the entities that signed the original agreement--the new limits would take effect immediately.

“Regardless of what happens in the election, John Wayne Airport only has limited capacity without it being a huge trauma to the [cities under the flight path],” Newport Beach City Manager Homer Bludau said. “We think this is a good, solid plan.”

Supervisors Jim Silva and Cynthia P. Coad have supported Newport Beach’s effort to lock in a small expansion at John Wayne before voters go to the polls next week. Silva began representing Newport Beach this year when district boundaries were redrawn. Supervisor Chuck Smith, who with Silva and Coad forms the board majority promoting an airport at the closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, has parted with his colleagues on John Wayne’s future. He said supervisors shouldn’t cut off their options for expanding air travel if voters ground the new airport.

Supervisor Tom Wilson also has resisted recent efforts by Newport Beach. He said Monday that he still has reservations but declined to say how he would vote. In May, while still representing Newport Beach before remapping changed his district’s boundaries, Wilson voted against the city’s plan for John Wayne, calling it a “rush to judgment.”

Spitzer has changed his position before regarding the John Wayne restrictions. In December 2000, he was conciliatory toward Newport Beach, saying then that no single community should be expected to balance the county’s demand for air travel “on their backs.”

But in May he said that changing the airport’s operating agreement would be a “big risk” if the county and city acted without consulting the airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration.

Newport Beach and county officials contend that the restrictions can be extended without the carriers’ or FAA’s approval. The airlines have indicated they will fight attempts to keep restrictions past 2005.

Spitzer’s comments reflect the complicated views on John Wayne held by those who oppose an El Toro airport. While some in the anti-airport movement support John Wayne’s growth to about 14 million passengers a year--the most it could physically handle, according to county planners--others say the airport should stay its current size, with passengers using such airports as those in Los Angeles or Ontario.

Newport Beach officials fear that pressure will grow to expand John Wayne if a new facility isn’t built at El Toro. Newport Beach and Irvine are the cities most affected by flights departing John Wayne. Cities under the arrival flight path include Villa Park, Orange, Tustin, Santa Ana and Costa Mesa.

The county has enforced a nighttime curfew at John Wayne since 1968. Commercial takeoffs are banned between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., and arrivals between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m.

Newport Beach and county officials contend that the flight curfew and noise restrictions will remain in place indefinitely, despite the 2005 expiration date, because they were adopted five years before a change in federal law that barred local governments from regulating airports. But those protections would not apply to a new airport at El Toro, a major reason for the opposition.