Divided O.C. Board Seeks Airport Halt

The Orange County Board of Supervisors split Tuesday over a response to the surprise revival of a plan to build a commercial airport at the former El Toro Marine base -- the latest sign that a local political divide over the issue is as deep as ever.

Supervisors voted 3 to 2 to write a letter to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta opposing an airport proposal from the office of Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn. The final sentence asks Mineta, a former congressman from Santa Clara County, to declare that the federal government isn’t interested in using El Toro for an airport.

The city’s proposal, which became public last week, is that the federal government lease the base to Los Angeles as a fifth municipally run airport, relieving demand at Los Angeles International. Though federal transportation officials have yet to even acknowledge the plan, it has stirred vigorous opposition in Orange County, where voters last year opposed an airport in favor of development centered around a large park. Developers are preparing to bid on pieces of the base to be auctioned this year by the Navy.

On the losing end of the vote were pro-airport Supervisors Jim Silva and Chuck Smith, who next week could lose his post as the county’s representative to a regional planning body because of his stand on El Toro.

Board Chairman Tom Wilson, who opposes an airport, said he will ask his colleagues to replace Smith with Supervisor Chris Norby. Such a change requires a board vote and cannot be done by Wilson alone, county attorneys said.

Smith vowed Tuesday not to bow to pressure to change his long-standing support for a commercial airport at the air base, which closed in July 1999. Besides, he said, the regional panel upon which he serves as first vice president doesn’t have the authority to decide where airports are built. He said he has been a member of the 74-member board for eight years -- and it hasn’t built an airport yet.

“This isn’t about policy, it’s about politics,” Smith said.

In Washington, anti-airport politics thwarted Rep. Jane Harman (D-Palos Verdes) from offering an amendment to an aviation funding bill that would have called on regions to “share the burdens and benefits of air transportation.” Harman said in a prepared statement that she declined to offer the amendment after it “collided with renewed anxiety about El Toro” from a delegation from Orange County.

The issue of an airport at El Toro has dominated Orange County’s political scene, particularly in the south, for nearly a decade. After Congress targeted the 4,700-acre base for closure in 1993, county voters a year later rezoned the property for an airport. A 1996 attempt by south Orange County residents to rescind it failed at the polls.

After six more years of bitter public wrangling, anti-airport forces prevailed in March 2002 with the passage of Measure W, which rezoned the base yet again for development centered around a large park.

Many people thought that ended the fight and were ready to move on, said Adam Probolsky, a pollster from Costa Mesa. But news of the Los Angeles proposal last week thrust the issue back into the political arena.

“People are going to be plagued by [their position on the airport] or have it benefit them” depending on how close they live to El Toro, Probolsky said. “It could affect a lot of these races. People will remember who was there for them.”

The airport battle is already being fought again in two Republican Assembly races in south Orange County.

Wilson, who is running in the 73rd District, sent a news release Tuesday labeling opponent Mimi Walters an ally of “pro-airport activist” Christi Cristich, whom she has endorsed in the neighboring 70th District. On Friday, it was Walters who criticized Wilson -- for appointing Smith to the regional transportation board despite Smith’s pro-airport stance.

Cristich already has been blasted by opponent Chuck DeVore for hosting a 1996 pro-airport news conference. Last week, Cristich circulated a news release opposing Los Angeles’ bid for an El Toro airport.

If it appears confusing, it is.

Walters, like Wilson, has long opposed an airport and chairs the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, a 10-city anti-airport coalition.

“This issue galvanized South County,” Walters said Tuesday. “We were all new cities, and a lot of people moved down here to be away from everything. There were some people who thought this was over, but we haven’t been able to let our guard down for one minute. I believe [Wilson] did that. He disappointed a lot of anti-airport people.”