County Bids Airport Adieu

The voters have spoken decisively on El Toro on two fronts. Yes, it is regrettable that the county blew the opportunity to plan some kind of acceptable aviation facility. But with a rezoning of the closed Marine base for a park and also the collapse of the pro-airport majority on the Board of Supervisors, the question is not whether there will be a change of direction, but exactly what it will look like. Within hours of the vote there was a new wrinkle. The federal government, tired of the long process, stepped up to say that it will now auction the land.

The feds hold the cards, but auctioning the land in a way that fulfills the Measure W mandate is not necessarily a sure bet to attract developers, at least for the park portion of the land. This might be an invitation to have nothing happen at El Toro for years but weeds and cracked concrete on that part of the base, which would be an outcome many observers have predicted for some time anyway. It also will be a challenge both to keep faith with the park initiative and to break the land up for a series of private sales, although obviously portions of this land will be very attractive to somebody, provided they are cleaned up and usable.

If the federal government were not so antsy to unload bases and put money in its coffers, the natural course would be to do what we suggested two years ago: Reconstitute the local planning authority for the base. That is, after all, the method originally outlined by the federal government for returning closed facilities to civilian use. The advantage is that it enlists local communities directly in choosing what they will have, but now an impatient federal government is saying in effect that it would transfer land for free only for one use: an airport.

But with a private sale, Irvine arguably still could have an annexation or at least influence what happens at the site. As a practical matter, the current Local Redevelopment Authority, which is a county-only operation and was airport driven, is dead.

Then there is the question of more legal wrangling, which a private sale might circumvent by defusing the old Irvine-Newport Beach airport wars. Putting the land on the block might be more acceptable to Newport Beach now that it has its protections in place for the future of John Wayne Airport.

At least this much is clear: Through eight years of debate and four rounds of ballot initiatives, one has never been able to say with certainty the words “Closure is at hand” about the future of El Toro. And it is true that on election night, a spokeswoman for the Newport Beach-based Airport Working Group cited past legal success in overturning a previous anti-airport initiative, and suggested more litigation is ahead. But as decisively as can be said at any time so far, the results of Tuesday’s initiative to rezone the base for a park--and the subsequent announcement by the Navy--have driven a spike through the heart of the commercial airport.

Certainly the county needs to move forward while continuing to look after the interests of Newport Beach, which fears being burdened with an oversized airport. It is worth looking back at what immediately preceded Measure W in the procession of initiatives. The overwhelming passage of Measure F in 2000 was an indication of the hardening of community thinking about the county’s planning for the base. At that time, airport opponents crafted an initiative that passed overwhelmingly and sought to remove from local county officials the final say over decision-making on major public infrastructure projects.

The courts later found that the initiative impinged on the prerogatives reserved for local elected officials, in effect making it impossible for them to do their jobs with the threat of referendums hanging over their heads. But having the courts step in to restore procedural order did nothing to remedy the underlying frustration of local residents over the arrogance of local planners in crafting an airport plan that was too big and raised so many questions about safety and the environment. The polling at the time on how residents in Orange County perceived their county leadership suggested a wide gap in confidence between constituents and leaders. That aspect of flagging confidence in the supervisors came home to roost Tuesday when voters in a North County district replaced incumbent Cynthia P. Coad with Chris Norby.

On a thin margin of support for the commercial airport on the Board of Supervisors, the county pressed forward with a plan that lacked any real support in communities surrounding El Toro, and had a soft base throughout the county. The argument for Measure A in 1994 to zone the base for an airport had been made as a way to preserve an option. However, once that initiative passed narrowly, airport advocates acted as if nobody else had any standing in the base reuse process, and that other options had been rejected. Thus began an institutionalized process of alienation of local communities from the reuse planning.

A decision in Washington to sell the land has a finality to it that transcends all the local fighting that has gone on. What happened last week argues for moving on, not reopening old jurisdictional battles. A private sale at this point would at least be an alternative to more local wrangling.

We said before the vote that the county needed to make provisions for the probability that John Wayne would have to meet the county’s future aviation needs alone. It now appears more likely than ever that John Wayne represents the future, and that a carefully expanded facility will have to work in concert with other regional airports to meet future needs. Orange County’s projected growth is nothing like that of other counties in Southern California, but it does need to make provisions for growth. Shortly before last week’s balloting, the county agreed to extend caps in a way that would permit some growth at John Wayne.

In any case, clarity makes progress possible. After years of uncertainty, the El Toro picture at least has come more sharply into focus.