Anti-airport group unleashes new flier

Mathis Winkler

NEWPORT BEACH -- To El Toro airport supporters, their enemy’s latest

flier amounts to an admission that things can’t stay the way they are.

In a leaflet that went out to South County residents over the weekend,

the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, a coalition of cities spearheading

the fight against a proposed airport at El Toro, promotes John Wayne

Airport as the solution to increased air travel in the future.

“Crowd Free -- Close to Home -- Close to Perfect,” announced the

flier’s cover, which also includes a picture of the John Wayne bronze

statue at the airport.

Inside, the leaflet goes on to say that flights out of the county’s

existing airport leave with many seats empty and a passenger volume of 12

to 14 million could be easily handled without major expansion.

The airport handles about 8 million passengers now.

But El Toro supporters said Monday that county environmental documents

show that this couldn’t be done without lengthening runways, increasing

the number of gates, adding parking structures and doing away with small

aircraft and private flights, among other things.

Such growth would also increase daily car trips by 77% and put a

strain on 14 intersections around John Wayne, said Richard Taylor, a vice

president of the Airport Working Group.

Caps on the number of flights and passengers as well as curfew

regulations are set to expire in 2005.

What is notable about the leaflet is that it is a change from previous

anti-airport stances, Newport Beach officials said.

“The irony is that [the authority] has just taken the position in the

past that there wasn’t any demand [for more air travel,]” said Councilman

Gary Proctor.

Yes, accommodating a few more million passengers at John Wayne

wouldn’t be that difficult, Proctor said.

“In the short term, it’s easy to add two gates,” he said. “But that’s

a short-term solution and this is not what this is all about.”

Proctor added that by 2020, 38 million passengers from Orange County

are expected to travel by air each year. Even a second airport at El Toro

couldn’t handle all of those flights, he said.

But “to say that you can [handle] it with John Wayne . . . is a media

position and has nothing to do with reality,” Proctor said.

South County officials countered that such growth numbers for air

travel were exaggerated.

“Orange County is not going to grow very much,” said Meg Waters, an

airport authority spokeswoman, adding that the county would only grow by

less than half a million people.

And most of that growth would occur in the lower- to moderate-income

areas, which don’t contribute significantly to an increase in air travel,

she said.

“We don’t think it would get to 8.4 million [passengers,]” Waters

said, referring to the caps currently in place. At the moment, about 7.8

million passengers use the airport each year.

“Of course there’s going to be a little bit of growth,” she said. “But

if you need an apartment, you don’t build a skyscraper to answer that

need.”

Waters added that the authority’s next flier would focus on

alternative airports, such as Ontario, which could pick up additional

passengers.

Dave Ellis, a spokesman for the Airport Working Group, said his

organization would begin countering the authority’s PR campaign in the

near future.

Just two weeks ago, Newport Beach’s City Council members approved

grants to Ellis’ organization as well as another pro-airport group to

boost support for El Toro among county residents.

In total, council members have set aside almost $3.7 million for such

efforts.