A few things to ask before burying El Toro

Newport Beach City Councilman John Heffernan would like to know

how the 3.7 million bucks the city -- meaning us -- invested to get

our El Toro airport message out to the voting public was spent. So

would I. Every time I try to talk to someone on our patio over the

aircraft noise, I would especially like to know.

I don’t find it comforting to be told that we’re offering noise

concessions in order to extend the current agreement when it expires

in three years.

The time to offer concessions was when various airport plans were

on the table and we had strong public approval for an airport. What

I’d like to know is how Newport Beach and our $3.7 million got from

that point to bailing out of the El Toro fight and buddying up with

county Supervisor Tom Wilson and Rep. Chris Cox, who torpedoed the

airport but have generously offered help now that their pals in

Irvine got everything they wanted.

Sour grapes? Sure. It’s hard to avoid out on my patio

contemplating an increase in noise rather than spreading it around a

little. Makes me feel something less than grateful to the people at

City Hall.

They -- or most of them -- have steadfastly refused to look the El

Toro debacle straight in the eye and admit the South County crowd

didn’t win the El Toro decision. We lost it.

We had it won twice, but we did such a lousy job of protecting our

advantage and presenting our case that our opponents simply took it

away from us. They out-created, out-imagined, out-lied, out-spent,

out-managed and out-performed us. And in the process they took away

the voters we had once won and stuck them in our ear. Mostly with a

mythic Park in the Sky that North County people wouldn’t visit even

if it ever existed. We allowed that bit of gauze to destroy an

airport that would have served many thousands of North County people.

Maybe demanding an accounting of the money spent in a lost cause

is flogging a dead horse. I don’t think the people raising that

question believe that any of those funds were stolen. Mostly,

Heffernan wants to know if there is any left to return to the city.

My interest is different. I’d like to know how it was spent and who

spent it. I might write a textbook someday on how to lose an election

you’ve already won, and this would offer a great example.

I’m getting a little tired of the we-fought-a-good-fight-and-

lost-and-now-we-must-pull-up- our-socks-and-move-on pieties from the

Newport Beach City Council and on the Pilot Forum page. Actually we

fought a terrible fight and -- a few of us believe -- moved on

prematurely while other cities less directly affected carried on the

fight.

I understand that however badly we performed, we are now in a

situation where we have to save what we can. But I resent the fact

that we abandoned the fight and hurried to this position in order to

placate Cox and Wilson and enlist their help in continuing a cap at

John Wayne Airport. So they win both ways; they successfully torpedo

an El Toro airport and emerge as heroes for throwing us a bone.

I think the low spot in all this maneuvering was a joint statement

that Reps. Cox and Dana Rohrabacher published in the Pilot after the

Great Park became law and the El Toro airport chopped liver. They

eulogized their own efforts to prevent a John Wayne expansion while

involving the private sector in the development at El Toro “to the

fullest extent possible.” Then they ended with this promise: “We will

continue our efforts to promote airport alternatives that will

prevent expansion at John Wayne from impacting the quality of life

for future generations.”

This is a high level of sophistry even for politicians. The

obvious alternative was El Toro. A made-to-order airport handed to us

on a silver platter. But instead of taking the lead in finding a way

to make that alternative happen, Rohrabacher was out surfing

somewhere and Cox was nuzzling with the Navy while the voters were

affirming the El Toro airport. I don’t recall him saying then that

the voters had spoken. Only after we finally blew it did he hear the

voters speak.

So why this tirade?

Because this whole miserable, expensive eight-year episode needs

to be seen with a little bit of honesty before it can be given a

proper burial. Right now, it’s been given little more than a cosmetic

makeover by public officials, but if we have to bury the El Toro

airport, let’s at least remove the lipstick and rouge first -- and

then maybe hold the killers accountable. That won’t make the noise on

my patio any more palatable, but it might provide a little bit of

satisfaction.

According to the Los Angeles Times, some $80 million in public

funds -- about evenly divided between the two sides -- has been spent

on this battle. The anti-airport money paid for eight full-page

newspaper ads and 22 brochures that saturated North County voters.

Pro-airport response was both too little and too late. The Great Park

won big.

But now, already, Irvine is backing away from the Park in the Sky.

Community activist Shirley Grindle told The Times: “Are we going to

have to face the fact that Irvine may have pulled a ruse on the

public by making one deal with the voters and another behind closed

doors with the Navy?”

Are we, indeed?

Meanwhile, the developers -- Cox’s “private sector” -- are

standing by at the El Toro airport’s wake, anxious to be pall bearers

and get on with the burial.

R.I.P., El Toro.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.