Editorial

El Toro and John Wayne Airport.

The two facilities may be miles apart, but their links couldn’t be

more apparent.

If El Toro doesn’t go, what happens to John Wayne? Will it expand?

Will the Federal Aviation Administration and the airline industry

pressure the county for more flights?

There’s no doubt that it’s difficult to complete the regional airspace

puzzle without considering both of those facilities.

But for too long, El Toro seemed to be the sole obsession of Newport

Beach city leaders, who were busy rallying for that pro-airport cause

while apparently neglecting to watch the trickling John Wayne hourglass

sitting right in their own back yard.

That all changed earlier this year when Newport Beach city leaders,

led by council members Gary Proctor, Dennis O’Neil and Norma Glover,

began a series of negotiations and talks with county officials to keep in

place caps on flights and curfews at John Wayne Airport that were set to

expire in 2005.

And last week, the city took that fight even further by agreeing to

shell out a cool $350,000 to pay for lobbying efforts in Washington D.C.,

where the next battle over John Wayne’s future will take place. In

addition, the city is spending $384,000 for mailers that will be sent to

neighboring cities to explain the city’s newly proposed settlement

agreement.

It’s the right thing to do. While some have advocated an all or

nothing El Toro approach, we believe neglecting John Wayne’s looming

settlement agreement deadline to focus entirely on the El Toro effort is

a dangerous and potentially disastrous path for city leaders to take.

They could easily have lost the countywide battle for the airport and

found the sands on the John Wayne settlement hourglass down to the last

grain. Thankfully, that has been averted for now.

Does that mean the city shouldn’t help fund efforts to turn El Toro

into the county’s next regional airport? Of course not.

But we believe those efforts can be better forged by advocates like

the pro-El Toro Airport Working Group, which receives money from Newport

Beach, and Citizens for Jobs and the Economy, a group largely funded by

Newport Beach millionaire George Argyros.

Citizens for Jobs and the Economy is also assisting the city in its

D.C. lobbying efforts.

Nonetheless, by letting those groups take the forefront on the

countywide fight for El Toro, city leaders can stay focused on the most

important of all matters -- the homefront.