Locals should relinquish grasp on El Toro

Like society matrons who commit the gaffe of showing up at a party

wearing identical dresses, letter writers Donald Nyre and William

Kerns spout the same improbable data in their side-by-side letters

(“Public opinion is shifting gears in regard to airport” and “County

mustn’t repeat mishandling of assets”) that ran in the Christmas

edition of the Daily Pilot.

Had the Pilot bothered to note that each man has been a director

of the Airport Working Group, the sense of deja vu from reading the

letters in sequence might have been more understandable.

Both men assert that an airport placed on the site of the former

El Toro base would create 134,000 jobs and $19 billion, which Nyre

terms “income” and Kerns calls “operating revenue.”

This serves to illustrate the “promise them anything” approach of

those beating the drum for an El Toro airport.

In 2001 and 2002, the El Toro Local Redevelopment Authority issued

a series of glossy mailers and ran a Web site, both of which promised

to provide “Just the Facts.”

One mailer claimed an airport at El Toro would “generate nearly

69,000 new jobs countywide,” while another asserted the facility

would “create 146,000 jobs -- both on-site and elsewhere in the

county.”

Likewise, instead of $19 billion, those mailers variously promise

“$6.84 billion in local economic activity” and “$9.7 billion in

business enterprise dollars [by 2020].”

But the Web site claimed a combined John Wayne and El Toro would

generate “annual operating revenues [income] of $188 million by 2006

and $408 million by 2016.”

It is kind of hard to know where Nyre and Kerns were headed with

their claims of $19 billion.

As many know, profits generated by an airport are not available to

local governments, but must stay within the operation of the airport

as per federal law. Therefore, a fantasy “operating revenue” of $19

billion is wonderful news for those who crave gold plumbing in

airport restrooms, but it wouldn’t add a dime to county coffers.

With their wild, unverifiable claims -- as difficult to nail down

as jello to a wall -- and promises growing faster than Pinocchio’s

nose, the desperation of the few holding out hope for an airport at

El Toro is obvious.

WILLIAM DETOY

Irvine