AWG may sue to stop annexation
June Casagrande
Airport Working Group leaders are considering suing the Local Agency
Formation Commission to force it to overturn its decision on
Wednesday allowing Irvine’s annexation of the closed El Toro Marine
Air Base.
“We’ve got our legal people looking into it, and we’ll be deciding
over the next few days what our next move is,” said Tom Naughton,
president of the Newport Beach-based group that has long supported
building a commercial airport at El Toro.
Airport Working Group leaders said there are several bases for
legal action. Most notable, Naughton said, is that a pending lawsuit
over environmental documents for the annexation challenge the basis
of the annexation.
“We’ve argued that they should postpone the decision until after
the suit over the [environmental review] is complete,” Naughton said.
Commissioners of the county agency disagreed and granted the
request annexing the 4,693-acre site to Irvine for development as
open space, residential and commercial areas.
A portion of that site could also be the basis of an Airport
Working Group suit. An 897-acre area at the northeast corner of the
site, known as the “habitat area,” had been basically ceded to the
Federal Aviation Administration in December 2001, working group member Rick Taylor said. The group could argue that the Navy did not
have the power to include that land in its annexation application
without written approval from federal aviation authorities.
“The LAFCO commission approved it, and that could be the basis for
appeal or a lawsuit,” Taylor said.
Dana Smith, executive officer for the commission, said she
believes that the process was fair and thorough and that the decision
was legally solid.
“We really spent a lot of time doing an objective analysis,” Smith
said. “We went, I think, beyond what most LAFCOs would have done in
analyzing the proposal. “We feel pretty confident that both
procedurally and substantively made the right decision.”
* JUNE CASAGRANDE covers Newport Beach and John Wayne Airport. She
may be reached at (949) 574-4232 or by e-mail at
june.casagrande@latimes.com.
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