Fight more flights, or for local rights

PRO

Daily Pilot letters to the editor headlined, “Maybe there’s a way to

unify the airport fight” from South County writers expressed interest in

working together with Newport Beach to find an equitable solution to our

county’s air transportation needs. That sounds wonderful, but to be

realistic, it is impossible. All other suggested places for a new or

existing airport to relieve pressure from John Wayne Airport have been

investigated by professional experts and found to have fatal flaws.

The military leaving El Toro air base and deeding it to our county was

incredibly fortunate. It provided us with the only realistic alternative.

The choice is simple: a huge expansion at John Wayne Airport or El Toro.

It is dangerous for anyone in Newport Beach, Costa Mesa or -- any other

city affected by John Wayne Airport -- to think the South County’s ballot

initiative, Safe and Healthy Communities, will be of any help to us. A

little common sense tells you why. Its purpose is to make it close to

impossible for any future airport, jail or dump to exist in South Orange

County by requiring a two-thirds approval by voters.

They are confident the recent uniting of their cities -- Irvine, Lake

Forest, Mission Viejo, Laguna, etc. -- to fight together in defeating the

airport can easily manage to get more than one-third of the vote to

reject El Toro or any other such project in one of their cities. In other

words, a minority of voters will be able to defeat the majority.

Other Orange County cities do not have the advantage of being linked

together in a buddy system. Once they get El Toro airport scrubbed and

after a few years of our traffic problems increasing, as experts predict,

voters will recognize an expansion of John Wayne Airport as our county’s

only hope. Who will side with us then?

Our community will be destroyed by an international airport virtually in

our backyard. The Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative is not our

savior. It is a nail in our coffin.

Each of us must do whatever it takes to defeat this mother of all

not-in-my-backyard initiatives or suffer the consequences.

LINDA ANDERSONNewport Beach

CON

When it was first proposed that El Toro be converted to a regional

airport, I was for it. I could see how such a change would be an economic

stimulus to the area, and I couldn’t understand why there was such an

uproar by those living in South County. What -- were they blind? Weren’t

the benefits more than worth a little noise and congestion?

Then something happened. I found myself involved in the fight to save

Lions Park from those in City Hall wanting to “make things better” --

wanting to make “improvements,” even when those in the neighborhood who

would be directly affected by the changes were against them. All we got

was a deaf ear. Don’t bother us, our minds are made up. Come hell and

high water (Anaheim Avenue flooding), the project goes forward.

I suddenly became very sympathetic to South County. What is happening

there is exactly the same thing that is happening in downtown Costa Mesa

-- something not wanted being shoved down our throats.

I realized that I couldn’t have a double standard -- one for the airport

and one for Lions Park. I couldn’t be a hypocrite. Like those living in

South County, I wouldn’t want it in my neighborhood.

Good luck in your fight.

WARREN CHRISTANSEN

Costa Mesa