READERS RESPOND

Some people just don’t get it! Flight restrictions or not, our

days will be filled with planes directly overhead in Aliso Viejo. There

is a lot of brainwashing going on in North Orange County, and the county

does not want Newport Beach to see that the planes will fly closer to our

communities than was previously disclosed.

During the flight demonstration we could read the writing on the

airplanes, and our windows rattled. New home building in Aliso Viejo and

Laguna Niguel put thousands of homes directly in the flight path. So,

while night restrictions would help at night, we will have to move out

during the days so you can have your airport. To be fair, we would rather

stop using John Wayne Airport altogether, rather than have El Toro go

through. For those of you not in our backyards during the flight demo,

it’s unfair of you to decide how much noise we should tolerate.

We will never support an airport here when we have been given proof by

your very own supervisors (via the flight demo) of how bad this is going

to be.

MIKE BARON

Aliso Viejo

Since an act of Congress in 1991 there has been no airport in the USA

that has received flight restrictions or curfews according to the Federal

Aviation Administration. The county of Orange will not take any action to

guarantee the success of restrictions or curfews at El Toro if it were

built and have openly admitted in the board of supervisors meetings that

curfews and restrictions on El Toro are not guaranteed. I’d like to hear

more firm and formal discussions on the subject from the board, but they

know it is a fruitless effort to do so.

DAVE KIRKEY

Coto de Caza

I’m sure Christopher Cox has only good intentions in trying to placate

South County residents with flight curfews. But, as the old saying goes,

the road to Hell is paved with such. I doubt many South County residents

are willing to follow Mr. Cox down that road. His idea is inadequate at

best and unworkable at worst.

Unworkable because, even if current federal law could be overthrown and

flight restrictions imposed, you would end up with a very costly airport

that generates no income!

Inadequate, because how does a 10 p.m. curfew mitigate the misery of

the thousands -- schoolchildren, the elderly, Irvine Spectrum business

employees -- who will have to spend their daytime lives in the shadow of

those flight paths.

CHRIS MARSH

Aliso Viejo

* EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is an open letter to all Newport Beach

residents:

As many of us know the rhetoric flying across the news media between

pro-airport supporters and antiairport protesters has become deafening. I

can understand why Newport Beach residents do not like John Wayne. I even

understand why they pushed so hard to have the government restrict the

hours in which John Wayne Airport can operate. Newport Beach is a

beautiful community, and I’m sure all residents of Newport take pride in

living there, and subsequently want to ensure it stays nice. What I do

not understand is the incessant belief that South County residents are

irrational and selfish in regard to accepting El Toro as a commercial

airport. What we are trying to stop in South County is the equivalent or

worse than what Newport Beach residents have hated and disdained in

putting up with John Wayne. We do not want to see our wonderful,

beautiful area destroyed -- just as Newport Beach residents do not want

that for their residential communities. So why the big push for El Toro?

Is this the way to be a good neighbor, pawning the problem onto South

County, or should the adage “Do unto others as you would others do unto

you” not apply? I ask all Newport Beach residents to urge their local

city government to push for a joint San Diego-Orange County regional

airport, placed somewhere in Pendleton, where airliners take off and land

over the ocean, not over residential homes that represent many people’s

life savings.

Together, we can change this county civil war and put the airport where

people aren’t.

DAVID SIESS

Laguna Niguel