El Toro Series Cries for a Game 7

You’ve probably heard that Tuesday’s election in Orange County was the death knell for an El Toro airport. That kind of talk disturbs me because I predicted in 1998 that the airport issue would be decided in a best-of-seven election series stretching to 2014.

At the time, we’d had two elections. Since that prophecy, we’ve had two more. Tuesday’s vote against the airport merely knotted the series at 2-2.

In other words, this thing is just getting interesting.

You didn’t see baseball calling off the World Series last fall when the Yankees and Diamondbacks were tied up 2-2. How would we have had a thrilling Game 7 without Games 5 and 6?

Besides, “El Toro” has become part of our local lexicon. Many people won’t know how to get along without it.

The debate has pumped millions of dollars into the local economies of consultants and lawyers. Scrap the debate and you’re going to see a lot more bedraggled people standing on street corners with signs reading, “Will Consult on El Toro for Food.”

Seems like just 1995, doesn’t it, when the county first voted on El Toro? Actually, it was 1994, and the pro-airport forces squeaked out a victory.

How much younger and innocent we all were then.

No one had ever heard of Monica Lewinsky or the Backstreet Boys. No one had shopped at the Block at Orange or driven a local toll road. George Bush was a governor, and Gray Davis wasn’t.

To show you how time flies when you’re planning an airport, the entire five-member Board of Supervisors has turned over since that ’94 vote. One of them (Tom Riley) has died, and another (Gaddi Vasquez) now runs the Peace Corps. The airport’s chief financial backer is now U.S. ambassador to Spain. The county has a new sheriff and district attorney and has had four CEOs. Robert Citron was considered an investment wizard, and Bob Dornan was the face of county Republicans.

But today ...

It’s probably best not to delude ourselves.

It’s probably time to let go.

I’m game for Election No. 5, but it’s just not going to happen. The fire is out of the pro-airport people, except for those hardy, perennial warriors who watch “Braveheart” every night on video. Tell them another El Toro election is possible, and they’ll paint their faces blue and white and dress in kilts.

The thinking combatants, however, know the end game is upon them. This time, their defeat was too crushing.

Not only did the anti-airport crowd win handily in passing Measure W, 58% to 42%, but it also KOd Cynthia Coad, the North County chairman of the board and an El Toro supporter, replacing her with anti-airport guy Chris Norby.

Coad’s defeat leaves only board colleagues Chuck Smith and Jim Silva to fight the good fight.

Silva wants to be taken alive, however, and said before Tuesday’s election that the county should give up on the airport if Measure W passed. Coad will serve out the year, but there’s nothing for her to do on El Toro, and she also has said she’d respect Measure W’s outcome.

So, as fun as this whole series has been (And we’ve had some laughs, haven’t we?), it must end.

It’s a bitter pill for airport forces, who thought they had this thing in their hip pocket as recently as 1996.

A week ago, I met with Larry Agran, as fierce a partisan in this eight-year fight as there is. He was all hearts and flowers, however, saying supporters of the Great Park idea embodied in Measure W would work to “include everybody in trying to implement this consensus vision” for the county.

He wondered if the other side would fight on. I said I doubted it.

But then, two glimmers were spotted.

Barbara Lichman, an attorney who I once feared would attack Agran in a debate and bite off his ear, said legal challenges are possible. And Mark Pisano, executive director of the Southern California Assn. of Governments, told a Times reporter that Measure W “doesn’t necessarily end the possibility of an airport at El Toro.”

Mirages? False hope? Dare we dream of a Game 5?

My head says no.

But my heart?

When it comes to an old friend like El Toro, it’s just hard to let go.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons @latimes.com.