Getting ready to rrrrrumble!

Paul Clinton

NEWPORT BEACH -- Armed with a reloaded war chest of funds from Orange

County and Newport Beach, Barbara Lichman and the Airport Working Group

are ready to rumble.

Lichman, the group’s executive director and outspoken attorney, is

pushing full throttle to defeat Irvine’s Great Park plan for the closed

El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

“We not only have the money, we have the drive,” Lichman said. “Our

single goal is to win.”

Lichman certainly has the experience. One of a handful of founders of

the working group, Lichman has put herself at the epicenter of airport

politics in Orange County for a quarter of a century.

Accused by some in South County of inflaming the debate about the

ultimate use of the base with fiery rhetoric, Lichman has been unafraid

to offer critiques of South County and its leaders.

Lichman has denounced the Great Park, which was re-christened the

Orange County Central Park as the centerpiece of a ballot initiative

launched April 30. Lichman called the park “a chimera, an empty shell,”

as well as “a veiled land grab” by Irvine.

Instead of an airport, South County officials have proposed a central

park for the 4,700-acre base, which would be rezoned from aviation to

parkland if the initiative passes in March. The plan, developed by Irvine

Mayor Larry Agran, also requires Irvine to annex the base property.

Lichman, who has been known to describe South County leaders as

“bozos,” has ruffled a few feathers in the neighborhoods surrounding the

marine base.

“Calling people names is a little over the top and not beneficial,”

Lake Forest Councilman Peter Herzog said. “She’s very committed to the

cause.”

From the 10th floor of her Irvine law office, Lichman can look out at

a county she hopes will someday be able to count two commercial airports.

It’s a dream Lichman has had for almost two decades.

The lobbying campaign for an airport at El Toro is heating up, not

only with the South County ballot measure, but with a new infusion of

funding to the working group.

The Newport Beach City Council has set aside $3.7 million for the

group to fight the El Toro battle.

The working group has begun circulating a series of fliers warning

voters that tax increases will be needed to pay for the Great Park.

Lichman isn’t worried about South County’s initiative. In fact, she

believes it will unify the cities surrounding Newport Beach.

“The Great Park was the greatest thing to happen to North County,”

Lichman said. “They [would be] spending millions of dollars so that

people in Irvine and Lake Forest can enjoy life.”

Lichman’s involvement in airport politics stretches back to her role

in the founding of the working group in the living room of her Dover

Shores home in August 1981.

The group was founded by Lichman and former Newport Beach Mayors

Clarence Turner and Tom Edwards to stem expansion at John Wayne Airport.

The group successfully accomplished the mission of securing a deal with

the county in 1985 that imposed a litany of flight restrictions.

The deal, the result of settling a lawsuit filed by the working group,

inspired Lichman to attend USC’s law school, where she earned a degree in

1988.

Since that time, Lichman has made a career in aviation-related law.

The 55-year-old Lichman is now a partner at Chevalier, Allen & Lichman

and contracting her services to clients on issues ranging from airport

access and zoning to air-crash liability.