Dear Steve Letters -- Columnist’s El Toro views no roaring success

Why is it that Steve Smith is allowed to run his columns in the Pilot

(“El Toro meeting doesn’t live up to billing,” Aug. 4)? Not only is he

out of touch with reality, he has a most limited vocabulary. This is not

the first of his articles where he can’t resist saying, “big, smelly,

noisy airport.” He only mentioned it twice in this article.

What Smith fails to understand is that these people from the Airport

Working Group are all volunteers giving of their time to better our

community. It seems as though what Smith wants is a professional actor

giving the briefings. His column and reporting is biased and inaccurate.

Smith just doesn’t get it.

JOSH WALKER

Newport Beach

Steve Smith looks like a rational guy -- that’s why I read his column

several times to make sure I understood what he is saying -- that it

“makes sense” to not have an EL Toro airport, that a “big, smelly, noisy

airport” should be located outside of Orange County, and that there’s no

danger of John Wayne expanding.

Smith’s “NIMBY” mentality is common today, but irresponsible. Costa

Mesa and Newport Beach have shared the burden of jet noise and a “smelly,

noisy” airport for decades. When is it South County’s turn, especially

since a large portion of the future airline business in Orange County is

projected to be from their populace?

Smith needs to review the facts: believing that John Wayne Airport can

handle the needs of Orange County alone without expansion in the next few

decades is like believing we’re still an agrarian society.

The “olive branch” of a resolution to attempt to limit expansion of

JWA, which the anti-airport people supposedly extended, was really a

Trojan Horse. “Join with us, and you’ll have no need to fear increased

jet noise,” say the anti-airport people. Right, no physical expansion,

they’ll just extend the operating hours of JWA to 24 hours. It’s the

anti-airport people who are “arrogant,” sitting in their idyllic South

County mansions and not caring about a proposed noise buffer around El

Toro that is many times larger than what people living near JWA have now.

Sleep tight, Smith -- undoubtedly he can’t hear the planes from his

home.

WARREN BEACOM

Costa Mesa

So Steve Smith thinks we should build an airport at Camp Pendleton

instead of El Toro. Camp Pendleton will not be a site for civilian

aviation for the same reason El Toro was not used in the 1970s and 1980s: the Marines are there. The Marines have lost El Toro and will not give up

a slice of Camp Pendleton just because Orange County may lack the

political will to convert El Toro to civilian use.

Demand for aviation in Orange County will increase and that demand

will be met. Whatever part of this demand does not utilize a facility at

El Toro will utilize John Wayne. Why Smith claims not to understand this

is beyond me.

Camp Pendleton is a red herring, as are Ontario, March Air Force Base,

San Bernardino and “drive to LAX.” These “options” will be trotted out at

every opportunity by foes of El Toro until they can foreclose the only

real option to JWA. Then the calls for more flights and expansion of JWA

will be deafening.

Please, Smith, limit topics to self-serving puff pieces about what a

great father you are. That way I can ignore your column altogether.

THOMAS A. BUTTERWORTH

Balboa Island