El Toro Headlines Portray Us as Flighty

Trust me, dear readers, we are not trying to drive you nuts. Nor are we toying with you for our own perverse amusement. We’re too nice for that.

But if, over the years, you’ve found yourself scratching your head over the El Toro airport issue and you’re not at all clear on what in the heck is going on, or if you’ve become disoriented in a sea of ETRPAs and Airport Working Groups and Millennium Plans and ALPA and DOD and FAA and Measures S, A, F and W ... would it help to know we feel the same way? Do you feel like you’ve read 50 stories over the years saying the airport is a done deal and another 50 saying it’s simply done?

Us, too.

I can see why you’d be a bit conflicted, but it’s not our fault. We’ve had one of our best reporters covering the issue, and it’s forced her to begin seeing a therapist three times a week. She’s one of the few people around here who actually does know what’s going on.

I fear you picked up the paper Thursday and saw the headline: “Irvine Wins Bid to Annex El Toro Site.” If you had a really good memory, however, you’d remember this headline from December 1999: “Navy Puts Damper on Irvine Plan to Annex El Toro.”

By now, you’re probably used to such misdirection. In October 1997, we headlined: “Another Pilot Union Warns of El Toro Risk.” By March 2001, it was “Pilots Union Eases El Toro Opposition.”

On election day in March 2000, you read: “Anti-Airport Initiative Leading Big” only to read this over breakfast nine months later: “El Toro Prospects Soar: Judges Void Measure F.” Just a month later, more of the same: “Supporters of Airport Win Latest Round in Legal Fight.”

At that point, you probably thought you could tell which way the wind was blowing. Until, that is, this headline from June 2001: “Airport Foes Gain Ground in Orange.”

That no doubt gave you pause until you read, four months later, “O.C. Supervisors Finally Approve El Toro Airport.” Your sense of “closure” lasted until January 2002, when you read: “After Four Years, El Toro’s Future Still in Doubt.”

In March 2002, you probably figured we were just getting bored, because we threw you a brand-new wrinkle: “An Indian Casino in El Toro’s Future?”

Again, folks, we were just doing our jobs.

And you can’t say we didn’t warn you, way back in June 1999: “El Toro Cleared for Takeoff -- Maybe.”

Do you think we enjoyed reporting, “Officials Lobby Washington to Revive O.C. Airport Plan” in April 2002, only to turn around a week later with, “Navy Sinks Last Chance of Airport at El Toro?”

We must have enjoyed it, because a week later, we whipsawed you again with this: “Planners Won’t Let El Toro’s Engines Be Idle.” A subsequent explanatory sub-headline began, “Panel Refuses to Remove Ex-Base from Plan for Future Regional Aviation Needs .... “

Looking back on my own role in all of this, I bear some responsibility. I no doubt thought I knew what I was doing in September 2002, when a column prompted this headline: “Let El Toro Die in Peace.” A mere six months earlier, however, a column led to this headline: “El Toro Series Cries for a Game 7.”

Well, what did I want? I now realize I don’t know.

All I can say is that I’m sorry.

Is it over now? Can you finally hang your hat on Thursday’s headline?

Yes. I’ve checked with our top people, and they say you can trust it. They say the only headline left to write is: “Runways Dug Up at El Toro, Replaced by Grass.”

But please, don’t call me if that’s followed the next day by: “Airport Backers Say Runways Needed Replacing Anyway.”

*

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821, at dana.parsons@latimes.com or at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626.