Airport Working Group did its job;...

Airport Working Group

did its job; voters didn’t

I appreciate Joseph N. Bell’s questions regarding what went wrong

regarding our goal to secure an airport at El Toro (“A Few Things to

Ask Before Burying El Toro,” July 25).

I agree with Bell that South County anti-airport activists

“out-created, out-imagined, out-lied, outspent, out-managed and

outperformed us.” Whose fault is that? Certainly not the Airport

Working Group whose members are all unpaid volunteers. That

organization was one of the very few doing anything at all. They had

the major challenge of trying to make the $3.7 million provided by

Newport Beach influence more voters than the $19 million provided by

the city of Irvine.

Actually, the group did a good job in putting forth their no on

Measure W campaign message, because the majority of cities in Orange

County voted against Measure W. However, the election was decided by

the voter turnout in anti-airport, South County cities that exceeded

that in the north by a huge margin.

So who is ultimately to blame?

Every single person who did not take part in the election process.

Did you campaign against Measure W? Did you contribute either your

time or money to the campaign? Did you influence anybody to vote? In

fact, did you and your family even bother to vote?

I do not believe an El Toro airport is dead. Measure W was flawed

and should be declared unconstitutional and void. If so, the land

will revert to airport zoning and Irvine Mayor Larry Agran’s flawed

park plan will be branded “R.I.P”

ANGELA GALLAGHER

Costa Mesa

Reader’s attack on Bell provides false arguments

Frank Limbaugh’s spiteful attack (Airport Debate, July 27) on

Joseph N. Bell, combined with his weird reasoning as to why the

entire county will be better off without an airport at El Toro, is

just too much.

He blames Bell for not wanting to have the noise from John Wayne

get worse. Doesn’t he know that the airport that became John Wayne

was never intended to be a commercial airport but just a strip for

small private planes? Doesn’t he know that, when the county

supervisors first approved commercial flights from there, they

promised that noisy commercial jet planes would never be allowed,

since there was no buffer zone around the small airport, as there was

at El Toro?

He says that the people weren’t voting for a Great Park but for no

El Toro. Then how come there were two countywide votes in favor of an

airport at El Toro before the vote on the Great Park? Unfortunately,

I know one of the reasons some people were against El Toro: some

politicians and Irvine officials told everyone in the county that the

noise and pollution from an airport at El Toro would make their lives

miserable and their homes unlivable. Pure scare tactics. The ironic

part about it is that most of the people that live close enough to El

Toro to be affected by a commercial airport bought their homes when

it was an active military airport with very noisy planes landing all

day long.

The attitude of the anti-El Toro crowd seems to be that they

simply don’t want any airport anywhere near them. Well, fine, then

let’s convert John Wayne back to a small private plane airport with

no commercial flights, like it was supposed to be.

What’s good for one is good for all.

Or, if Orange County really needs a commercial airport, which

would be best for the entire county?

Would it be a small and eventually inadequate airport with no

buffer zone around it that cannot be enlarged without wiping out some

of the otherwise best and most expensive residential property in the

county, or an airport over 10 times the size with a large buffer zone

around it that is more centrally located for the use of the entire

county and located where an active airport has been for over half a

century?

JERRY PARKS

Newport Beach