V-plan backers undaunted by anti-airport vote

Paul Clinton

NEWPORT BEACH -- Organizers of an alternative airport plan for the El

Toro Marine base are still moving ahead with their own initiative,

despite a convergence of airport-quashing events over the past two days.

Charles Griffin, a retired aviation engineer and author of the

proposal known as the V-plan, says the measure would offer an alternative

for people who still want an airport at the base despite Tuesday’s

Measure W victory.

The initiative posted a solid victory across the county with a 58%

approval. It will rezone the closed military base to open space.

“I would say it has always been the logical thing,” Griffin said. “If

we don’t have El Toro, our whole region has suffered a loss.”

Griffin said he planned to submit a new version of his initiative to

the Orange County registrar of voters today. He said he would incorporate

elements of open space into it.

It would be the second initiative for Griffin, whose earlier measure

died on the vine. After six months of gathering signatures, Griffin has

gathered only about 1,000 of the 71,206 names required by state law to

qualify a measure.

Griffin’s task, however, now may be even tougher. With the Navy’s

announcement Wednesday that it would likely sell off parcels of the land

at the base to the highest bidder, Griffin’s dream of an airport at El

Toro, like many others, may be fading.

The V-plan measure would alter the zoning at the base to allow the

county to tear out the existing east-west runway. Under the concept, a

second runway would be built off the northwestern edge of the north-south

runway to form a “V” pattern.

Dejected airport boosters, regrouping after the county voters

repudiated the airport by approving Measure W, called the V-plan a

longshot.

“I think it’s too soon to make that analysis,” said Bruce Nestande, a

former county supervisor and head of the pro-El Toro airport forces. “I

do not know how rapidly the Navy’s moving. That is what clouds the

issue.”