Joseph N. Bell -- THE BELL CURVE

The El Toro airport beat goes on. And on. And on.

Laurel and Hardy. Abbott and Costello. Cheech and Chong. Laurel runs a

sound test; Hardy calls it a joke on the one hand and says it proves

unacceptable noise on the other. Abbott comes up with a skin game called

the Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative; Costello responds by trying

to out-con the skin game with a counter initiative. Cheech ponies up 150

grand to push for the airport; Chong kicks in $350,000 to kill it. Or $6

million. Or $11 million, depending on whose figures you accept. And so it

goes.

Next performance tomorrow. Watch the newspapers for time and place.

The only people making out in this miasma of confusion and rhetoric are

the political flacks who will go either way for the bucks. And since the

biggest bucks appear to be in South County at the moment, the flack

consultants who previously pushed the pro-airport position are now

demonstrating a remarkably open mind by selling out to the other side.

All this reminds me of a conversation I once had with Bill Roberts who --

along with Stuart Spencer -- directed an actor named Ronald Reagan in his

campaign to win the role of governor of California. Spencer-Roberts had

also managed California campaigns for the liberal Nelson Rockefeller and

the John Birch Society Congressman John Rousselot. When I asked Roberts

how he could, in good conscience, work for candidates with such disparate

philosophies as Rockefeller and Rousselot, he said: “We don’t hyphenate

Republicans. We ask only two things of a candidate we decide to handle:

Is he a Republican and does he have a chance to win? We don’t judge him

any further than that.”

I don’t know if the turncoat consultants hired by the city of Irvine are

motivated by the prospect of living under a potential El Toro flight

path. What I do know is that I live under the John Wayne flight path, and

that leads me -- by way of some rather obvious reasoning -- to several

conclusions that I offer free of charge to both sides in this tiresome

debate.

First of all, no one directly affected by aircraft noise is going to

compromise this issue. If 100 additional flights at John Wayne were

proposed, I would fight like hell against them. And I would have no more

interest in compromising at 50 or even 25 than the people who would be

subjected to El Toro noise are going to compromise.

It makes no difference to them that I live a few hundred yards off the

John Wayne runway while they would be five miles or more distant from El

Toro, and are thus far less subject to noise. They are programmed to

believe that the noise would be intolerable, and they aren’t going to

moderate that conviction. If you doubt that, consider for a moment that

probably no other issue in human history could have brought Larry Agran

and Christina Shea together.

Second, a counter initiative to that wonderfully christened Safe and

Healthy Communities Initiative is a terrible idea. Floating this

suggestion has already achieved about all that can be expected of it:

stimulating the whining coming out of Irvine, where the counterproposal,

according to the Los Angeles Times, has been “deeply resented” and called

“manipulative trickery” -- apparently in contrast to that Safe and

Healthy paragon of public policy virtue. It’s time that we just accept

the fact that they got the jump on us in the shell game -- and not try to

beat them at their own game.

Larry Agran told a Times reporter that it was his “gut feeling” that a

counter initiative “would backfire.” It’s the first time I’ve agreed with

Agran since the Marines decided to retreat from El Toro.

Third, and finally, scattering funds, energy and focus sometimes wins an

occasional battle but assuredly doesn’t win wars. Proponents of a

commercial airport at El Toro need to select the most vulnerable spot in

the enemy lines and concentrate resources there. And I believe that

vulnerable place to be what they regard as their greatest strength: our

old friend, Safe and Healthy.

Defeating this initiative would effectively break the back of organized

opposition to the El Toro airport. There would probably be years of rear

guard legal actions, but the heart would be cut from the opposition. They

have managed to talk their way out of two elections, but a third would be

fatal -- and they’ve set themselves up.

Finding the votes to bring this off should be concentrated where efforts

are most likely to be effective: in areas where noise from the planes is

not a factor. Trying to placate South Countians is counterproductive. But

residents of central and north Orange County would be receptive to the

strong arguments -- mostly economic -- that urge an El Toro airport.

So why don’t we knock off the blather. Let Wilson and Spitzer have their

photo ops with the petitioners and Agran and Shea bleed for the helpless

victims of corporate greed. If the consultants Newport Beach has hired

haven’t made the above arguments forcefully, they should be fired. And if

I’m not asked to be general manager of the Angels, I’ll be available --

for 150 grand, of course.

JOSEPH N. BELL is a Santa Ana Heights resident. His column runs

Thursdays.