Pro-airport groups ready to rumble

Mathis Winkler

NEWPORT BEACH -- Armed with a multimillion dollar war chest at their

disposal, representatives of groups supporting an airport at El Toro said

Tuesday they are ready to enter the ring.

After sitting quietly while the county’s anti-El Toro forces were

bombarding residents with mailers, television and newspaper ads, El Toro

supporters will retaliate with equal means in the next two weeks.

“We’ve been dark for far too long,” said Dave Ellis, a spokesman for

the Airport Working Group. “This is an exciting time for us. We have not

been able to return fire in a long time . . . In the next 10 days, Orange

County will be getting educated on airports and uses at El Toro.”

Ellis added that the group was currently fine tuning television ads

for cable TV as well as mailers.

“Everybody will get an idea of how El Toro will benefit the county,”

he said.

While Ellis’ group already reappeared on the battleground when it

launched a new Web site promoting El Toro, a recent $120,000 grant from

Newport Beach will allow the Airport Working Group to expand its efforts

into the real world as well.

City leaders also approved $150,000 for Citizens and Jobs in the

Economy, another pro-El Toro group. Both organizations can submit

additional expenses for reimbursement under the agreement. In total, the

city has set aside $3.69 million to fight the pro-airport battle.

The groups might approach the airport issue from different angles --

Ellis’ group is primarily concerned about a possible expansion of John

Wayne Airport should El Toro fail to happen and Citizens for Jobs and the

Economy focuses on the economic benefits of an additional county airport.

Both Ellis and Bruce Nestande, the latter groups’ president and chief

executive, said they’d coordinate their strategies with each other as

well as the Orange County Regional Airport Authority, which is set to

spend an additional $5 million on a public outreach campaign.

“We have a different rationale for what we’re trying to accomplish,”

Nestande said. “But we all come together on one issue and that is the

need for El Toro.”

On the other side of the trenches, leaders in the fight against an El

Toro airport said they were closely watching their opponents’ movements.

“Of course we’re interested,” said Paul Eckles, the executive director

of the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, adding that pro-El Toro groups

had managed to secure a significant amount of money.

But “no matter what they spend, they can’t change the reality that

this airport’s a bad idea,” Eckles said. “If you put perfume on a pig,

it’s still a pig.”

Anyway, all fire might have to cease on both sides once El Toro

opponents file a notice of intent to circulate a petition for a ballot

initiative that would kill the airport proposal, Eckles said.

Far from it, responded Nestande.

“A ballot initiative does not preclude a straightforward, factual

public information program,” he said, adding that pro-El Toro mailers

would not take a side and simply discuss the reuse of the former Marine

Corps Air Station.

City Atty. Bob Burnham said that even without an initiative aimed at

defeating the airport, anything that’s sent out by Ellis’ or Nestande’s

group and paid with city funds will have to be cleared by lawyers to make

sure it’s a legal use of public funds.