Costa Mesa to consider El Toro funding

Paul Clinton

COSTA MESA -- Newport Beach isn’t the only city funding efforts to

build an airport at the shuttered El Toro Marine base.

Not long after Garden Grove and Seal Beach both anted up, Costa Mesa

will consider adding to the growing funding pot.

The City Council tonight will consider granting two lobbying groups

more than $36,000.

The Orange County Regional Airport Authority has requested $21,231 and

the Airport Working Group, based in Newport Beach, has asked for $15,000.

The authority, a loose coalition of North County cities fighting for an

airport at El Toro, would use the funds to pay for basic operating

expenses.

That rather unusual number is based on a formula worked up by

Councilman Chris Steel, the city’s representative on the coalition. Under

Steel’s formula, each of the more than a dozen authority cities will be

asked to give 20 cents per city resident to the pro-airport cause.

“That would be your recommended contribution,” Steel said. “They’re

not obligated to make any contribution. But we’re hopeful they’ll see it

to make some contribution.”

Costa Mesa’s population is about 106,000.

The working group would use its grant to “educate the grass roots and

opinion leaders on the expansion impacts” of John Wayne Airport,

according to a letter from group spokesman Dave Ellis to Councilman Gary

Monahan.

The group hosted several public information workshops prior to the

March 2000 passage of Measure F, which requires a two-thirds voter

approval for any new airport, jail or landfill.

Ellis said the group would host additional public meetings.

“The public forums they’ve put on and the information they’ve put out

has been invaluable to the people of Costa Mesa,” Monahan said. “I think

they can be effective.”

On March 27, Newport Beach gave $120,000 to the Airport Working Group,

along with $150,000 to Citizens for Jobs and the Economy -- another

pro-El Toro group -- and $150,000 to the airport authority.

On April 23, the Seal Beach City Council handed $5,482 to the airport

authority. Garden Grove has been providing office space to the authority;

city officials in that city have proposed a $35,000-grant to the group as

part of the 2001-2002 budget.

The council meets at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall, 77 Fair Drive.