Business: Credibility on El Toro Essential

Orange County must restore confidence in its hobbled plans for a new airport at the closed El Toro Marine base regardless of whether a judge today upholds an anti-airport ballot measure, a group of business leaders said.

“If we get one thing from the judge’s ruling, no matter what it is, it should be a fresh start on this process,” said Stan Oftelie, executive director of the Orange County Business Council, which favors an airport.

The ruling by Judge S. James Otero will be announced at 8:30 a.m. in Los Angeles. Measure F, passed in March, is intended to stop the county from building a new airport at El Toro without two-thirds approval by county voters. It also restricts construction of large jails near homes and hazardous waste landfills.

The measure was approved by 67% of voters after supporters argued that government should not be able to impose such intrusive facilities on nearby residents unless two-thirds of voters agree. Polls conducted earlier this year by The Times showed that only about a third of residents still favor an airport at El Toro.

Both sides in the airport debate have avoided publicly handicapping Otero’s decision, which probably will be appealed. Pro-airport forces have asked the judge to throw out the entire measure as unconstitutional and a violation of state law. Attorneys for the county want the judge to invalidate a provision in the measure restricting how the county can spend its money to plan the three types of facilities.

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Regardless of Otero’s ruling, Oftelie and business council Chairman Tom Merrick said they will recommend in a letter today to county supervisors that outside experts be hired to conduct a “peer review” of the county’s airport planning documents. Even if Measure F is upheld, the county must complete an environmental review and other studies before the plan is brought to voters, they said.

“Let’s be clear: Some people think the county has doctored the data” on El Toro, Oftelie said. “We don’t think that way, but let’s find out. There has to be confidence in the county’s work product.”

Board of Supervisors Chairman Chuck Smith, echoing comments by the council executives, said the county must be prepared to make “radical changes” in its plans, including reducing the size of the airport and changing the takeoff and landing patterns to reduce opposition. Representatives of pilots and air-traffic controllers have criticized the county’s plan for sending departing jets into the path of jets preparing to land at other airports.

Also, Smith said, a Southern California airport planning group that hasn’t met in years should be reactivated. The counties of Orange, Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside, and the city of Los Angeles are already members of the Southern California Regional Airport Authority. So is the Los Angeles Department of World Airports, which operates five regional airports, including Los Angeles International and Ontario International.

“I see [the group] as having a planning role” for how El Toro and John Wayne Airport should fit with other airports, Smith said. “We have to take a regional approach.”

Among other recommendations by the business council: The county must verify existing and projected demand for passengers and cargo into and out of Orange County. The forecasts have been attacked by airport foes as bloated and unrealistic. County planners also must stop acting as advocates and leave final decisions to the Board of Supervisors and the voters, they said.

“The county must work hard to be a fair broker of accurate, authentic information,” Merrick and Oftelie said in their letter.

Finally, county officials must clarify what the alternative would be if an airport is not built at El Toro, they said. South County airport foes have three competing non-airport plans, two centered on homes and businesses and a third that would create a huge urban park out of the 4,700-acre base.

Having a side-by-side comparison of the airport and an alternative is essential for voters to make an informed choice, Oftelie said.

“Right now people are just shadowboxing with each other from different rings,” he said.

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Decisions on the future of El Toro have been put on hold while Otero considered the legality of Measure F. The judge twice postponed decisions on the measure as he studied hundreds of pages of legal briefs filed by both sides.

Sources close to the case acknowledged that pro-airport forces risk losing ground under any scenario: If the judge upholds the measure and its requirement for a two-thirds vote, it is widely believed that an airport plan cannot pass that stringent a test. If the judge hinges the airport’s fate on a simple-majority vote, marshaling enough support could still prove daunting to battle-weary airport boosters.

And if the judge rejects Measure F, airport foes could try to use the court’s intervention against the popular measure as a rallying cry for voters to repeal the airport’s original 1994 ballot approval.

An invalidation of the measure also could reach further to affect two health care initiatives on the November ballot. Like Measure F, those measures restrict the way future boards of supervisors can spend funds. They mandate different uses for millions of dollars in proceeds from California’s part in successful litigation against tobacco companies.

County lawyers unsuccessfully tried to keep Measure G, which is backed by a coalition of health care providers, off the ballot, using the same legal arguments as they used against Measure F.

A second health measure, Measure H, backed by county Treasurer-Tax Collector John M.W. Moorlach, was placed on the ballot by supervisors as a rival measure.