V-plan backers want supervisor’s help

Deirdre Newman

NEWPORT-MESA -- Supporters of an alternative El Toro airport with

revised runways launched an e-mail campaign on Thursday to try to get

their initiative on the fast track for the November ballot.

The New Millennium Group is encouraging supporters to bombard the

three pro-airport supervisors with e-mails so theywill place the

Reasonable Airport, Park and Nature Preserve Initiative on the ballot.

The so-called reasonable airport, also known as the V-plan, calls for

realigning the runways into a V shape with flights departing to the

southwest toward Newport Coast and landing over the mountains to the

north of the closed Marine base.

The initiative faces a tough hurdle, however, as a decade worth of

airport planning by the county was rejected by voters when Measure W, the

Great Park initiative, passed in March.

Both Newport Beach and Costa Mesa city officials have dropped out of

the pro-El Toro fight, even declining to sign on to a lawsuit that

challenges Measure W.

Additionally, the Navy announced the day after the election that it

was considering selling the land piecemeal. Officials from the city of

Irvine are champing at the bit to snap it up.

Still, the group has been gathering petitions to get the initiative

on the ballot themselves, but members would not disclose how many

signatures they have obtained so far.

El Toro airport opponents scoff at the e-mail campaign, charging it’s

just a desperate attempt to compensate for a lukewarm reception to the

group’s petition drive.

“We’ve had four El Toro initiatives, and all four have gone on the

hard way -- through petitioning,” said Leonard Kranser, director of the

Committee for Safe and Healthy Communities. “And I see no reason why,

after we’ve had four initiativesthrough petitions, that these guys should

get a free ride because they’ve been unable to get enough public support

to get on through the petitioning route.”

V-plan supporters, though, say getting the supervisors to do it

instead accomplishes two important goals.

First, it would allow the group to save the money it is expending

during the petition drive and use it instead during the informational

phase of the campaign.

“We won’t have enough money for a campaign at the rate we’re going,”

said Bob McGowan, a member of the New Millennium Group. “We’re going to

have to go up against developers.”

McGowan said it’s incumbent upon the three pro-airport supervisors --

Cynthia Coad, Jim Silva and Charles Smith -- to rally to the New

Millennium Group’s cause and give voters yet another chance to approve an

airport.

“It doesn’t cost them anything to put it on the ballot,” McGowan said.

“After spending $55 million on the wrong plan, they could at least say,

‘let’s give it a shot for the right plan.”’

Supervisor Silva was in Washington, D.C., and could not be reached for

comment for this story. The supervisors have until August to decide

whether to put the initiative on the ballot.

* Deirdre Newman covers education. She may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at o7 deirdre.newman@latimes.comf7 .