EL TORO DEBATE
The anti-airport people need to show to the people of Orange County, who
have voted in favor of El Toro Airport on two separate occasions, an
alternative to El Toro that will be better for the long-term solution to
Orange County’s transportation.
John Wayne Airport has the shortest commercial runway in the country.
Total land size of John Wayne Airport is just 470 acres with developed
property on all sides.
El Toro encompasses more than 18,000 acres with the airport and open
areas surrounding it. You could put 39 John Wayne Airports inside those
boundaries.
It only makes sense to utilize this gift to Orange County to serve our
future.
The air transportation solution is not expansion of John Wayne Airport
because there is not enough land. It is not a high-speed rail to a
distant airport. A high-speed rail does not exist, is not economically
feasible, and would not be practical for residents coming from all over
Orange County.
The solution is not driving the freeway to LAX or Ontario. The freeways
are clogged for most the day, and that will only get worse in the years
to come.
South County residents must consider the very long-term needs of all of
Orange County’s residents and either provide a better alternative than El
Toro, or get involved in the planning process in a positive way to make
El Toro airport the best possible solution.
DAVE BENT
Newport Beach
John Wayne Airport in Newport Beach has been handling the airway needs of
Orange County and surrounding areas for more than 20 years. It is time
for the citizens and businesses of Orange County to gather together and
share all the concerns about making El Toro an airport.
With two airports we can support future growth for our beautiful, unique
and desirable county. Our citizens and businesses will need both airports
in the near future. There will be restricted flight hours like at John
Wayne Airport.
We need to rally together and share the load. This is not just a Newport
Beach problem. We all share in this growth by having children,
grandchildren, great-grandchildren, businesses, culture and recreation in
Orange County. The concerns belong to all of us.
If there is another city in Orange County that has room and wants an
airport, then build it there. We need another airport.
ROCHELLE LISS
Corona del Mar
AWAY FROM HOME
Suppose the Marines had announced they were staying at El Toro
permanently, but that all noisy fighter jet operations would cease
immediately. For the next 10 to 15 years, they would be replaced by
relatively small numbers of much quieter commercial-type transport jets
while the facility was being prepared for increased operations by a new
breed of even quieter jets.
There could be only one plausible reaction to such a pronouncement: a
unanimous sigh of relief from the surrounding communities.
But that scenario mirrors exactly what the county has proposed for El
Toro. Why then the mass hysteria? Why the initiative that would stop
progress throughout the county? Why the Millennium Plan, which would
convert a virtually extinct asset in this country -- an available airport
facility surrounded by a huge residence-free noise buffer zone -- into a
white elephant, which in the unlikely event it were ever successful would
generate more traffic congestion and air pollution than a commercial
airport?
There is only one plausible explanation for this reaction. Let’s say it
all together: Those folks down there in South County see the closure of
El Toro as their entitlement, and to hell with the rest of the county.
They won’t settle for anything less than a reversion to the bean field El
Toro was 50-plus years ago, when not a single one of them lived anywhere
near it.
DAN EMORY
Huntington Beach
Orange County can be served with no John Wayne expansion and no El Toro
airport. For example, March Inland Port in Riverside is well situated to
handle Southern California air cargo. San Diego leaders are looking for a
new commercial airport location, beginning in their north. Ontario, which
has recently tripled in capacity, is ready to serve North Orange County.
Those who live near John Wayne should not bet all their energy and money,
and that of the city of Newport Beach, on a doomed attempt to move jets
from their backyard to those of unwilling Orange County neighbors a few
miles away. Don’t put all your eggs in the one El Toro basket. El Toro
probably will not be built.
Newport Beach accounts for only 3% of Orange County’s voters. Eight South
County cities are determined to block El Toro for as long as it takes.
Rep. Christopher Cox and Ron Packard back the Safe and Healthy
Communities Initiative, which will pass. Polls show that an overwhelming
majority of county voters want to revisit the El Toro issue, and when
they do, that airport will not fly.
It makes sense for Newport Beach citizens and their leaders to support a
cause in which everyone wins. Support development of systems for getting
Orange County passengers and freight to outlying airports that want the
business.
Protect yourself against the expansion of John Wayne by working for
consensus on sensible regional airport plans that put airports out where
they belong -- and where they will be accepted.
LEONARD KRANSER
Editor, El Toro Airport Info. Site
Dana Point
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