El Toro gets regional backing

Paul Clinton

NEWPORT-MESA -- To the delight of city officials, a regional group of

city governments on Thursday backed an airport for the shuttered El Toro

Marine base.

The Southern California Assn. of Governments, made up of 184 cities

and six counties, voted to include a recommendation for the airport in

its regional transportation plan for federal grant money.

That plan also includes no increase in flights out of John Wayne

Airport.

Using computer models, the public policy group offered up a scenario

for flight demand in 2025 that would include an airport at El Toro

handling 29.7 million passengers a year.

The projection falls in near alignment with the county’s current plan

to build an airport with a capacity for 28.8 million passengers per year

at the closed base, a proposal that has strong support in Newport Beach.

“I think [the forecast] has a real foundation in reality,” said Tom

Naughton, a pro-El Toro activist and president of the Airport Working

Group. “I think it’s a very useful study.”

The association approved the scenario, which also factors in no change

in the size of John Wayne Airport. Newport Beach officials and activists

are pushing for the extension of the 8.4-million annual passenger cap at

the airport, set to expire in 2005.

South County civic leaders fighting an El Toro airport downplayed the

study. On Thursday, Meg Waters, a spokeswoman for the El Toro Reuse

Planning Authority, dismissed the plan outright.

“This was a political decision,” Waters said. “It has nothing to do

with aviation. It has everything to do with who gets [federal grant]

money for roads.”

The association’s plan also factored in significant increases in

passenger loads at other airports in 20 years, including a more than 13%

increase at Los Angeles International, from the current 69 million to 78

million.

Several locations where airports have been proposed, including

Palmdale and the closed March Air Force Base in Riverside, were also

included in the projections.

Association spokesman Jeff Lustgarten was quick to emphasize that the

report is only a forecast.

“It’s a regional guideline,” Lustgarten said.

The projections are part of the association’s three-year effort to

assess growing transportation demands in Southern California.