EDITORIAL

Those community forces pushing for an airport at El Toro know we’ve

lobbed our share of critical salvos their way from time to time for their

handling of the issue.

And we believe they deserved the criticism.

Still, we would be negligent if we didn’t heap some praise on them

now.

Using money provided by the city of Newport Beach, the Newport

Beach-based Airport Working Group and the Citizens for Jobs and the

Economy joined up with the El Toro Educational Alliance and undertook a

costly and effective campaign to debunk the whole Great Park scenario,

which voters are being asked to approve next March.

If it gets voter OK, the Great Park initiative calls for turning the

closed El Toro Marine base into a park on the scale of Central Park in

New York.

But in a report prepared by the Educational Alliance, the idea that

the county could somehow build a deliciously grand expanse of open space,

greenery, museums, botanical gardens and other cultural monuments without

the taxpayers having to pinch in one penny is looking a little hard to

believe.

Irvine Mayor Larry Agran and South County forces say the park won’t

cost a thing because they believe the federal government will just hand

over the land, wiping out a near half billion price tag for the parcel.

In addition, they insist the existing buildings on the site can be leased

out for $25 million a year.

But the report insists the county would indeed have to pay for the

land and that leasing the aging facilities at the closed Marine base will

not come close to $25 million. Indeed, after all is said and done the

report, produced by Denver-based BBC Research and Consulting, concluded

the park would take 63 years and $2.1 billion to build.

Hard to imagine how the taxpayers could escape without opening up

their wallets on a price tag like that.

So it’s time to spread the word about this report. We just hope there

is still time.

Because as we pointed out, we have been critical of these very same

groups for failing to see the political winds were blowing way off kilter

when it came to public support for an El Toro airport countywide.

During last year’s catastrophic Measure F campaign, these very same

groups concentrated on spreading the pro-El Toro word here in

Newport-Mesa, a community that needed little persuasion that another

airfield is critical to alleviate the growing needs of John Wayne.

In that election, South County forces, aware that the razor-thin

majority in favor of an El Toro airport could easily be erased, hit the

airwaves with commercial after anti-airport commercial.

Today, we see that same tack being taken by the pro-airport groups and

we applaud those decisions and those efforts to get the word out.

Because if these groups can take this Great Park truth-squad show on

the road, chances are the residents of the county will see how hard it

will be to pay for such a plan and they will think hard about their

pocketbooks as they head into the ballot box this March.