Finding a place to land more air traffic

In your July 4 editorial, you are quite correct that the desperate

need for an alternative airport clearly still exists (“Airport

alternative must stay on radar”). El Toro is the only sensible and

responsible answer to the rising passenger demand at John Wayne.

Ontario and other Inland Empire airports are too far away to provide

practical relief for overloading at John Wayne. North San Diego has

similar or worse airport problems to solve than Orange County, due to

hilly terrain and especially since the Marines say Pendleton is

off-limits. Any expansion of John Wayne Airport would greatly

increase the number of homes, churches and schools over those already

in the airport’s noise zone.

At El Toro, on the other hand, no houses, churches or schools

would be in the noise zone of departing and arriving planes. Why

should all of Orange County be penalized with cost and inconvenience

because the increased airport capacity needed is primarily due to the

growth of a “city” of more than 600,000 people in South County? The

safe, existing airfield at El Toro is already in place to absorb the

South County growth, and no one around El Toro is in the noise zone.

The present Orange County Board of Supervisors is under the

control of South County and has shown no need or willingness to

consider the welfare of the rest of Orange County or the duty to help

in the provision of airport facilities to alleviate air travel

congestion of the overall southland area in which we reside. Instead,

they seem to cater to the desires of a powerful ROAD group -- an

acronym for Real Estate, Oil, Auto and Developers -- a de facto

consortium of interests who will profit most if the Great (Fake) Park

is allowed to prevail.

It is time that the cities of North County, with its population of

more than 2.5 million, take charge of the destiny of Orange County.

After all, with a population five times that of South County, and

with commensurate air transportation needs, those cities need to make

sure all of Orange County is properly represented and not just the

newbies and nimbys of South County.

WILLIAM KEARNS

Costa Mesa

* EDITOR’S NOTE: Sunday’s editorial suggested that, with El Toro

no longer an option, city and other leaders needed to look elsewhere

for an alternative to an expanded John Wayne Airport.

The Daily Pilot suggests there be an airport alternative to John

Wayne while citing that El Toro is gone. The editorial even included

Supervisor Jim Silva lamenting, “That was the only game in town, the

El Toro airport, and that went down in defeat.”

How touching! While Silva was part of a then 3-2 pro-El Toro board

majority, he literally fumbled away the ball and the lead at the goal

line and cost airport supporters the game.

For starters, at the Sept. 17, 2001 board meeting, when an

environmental report came up, he voted to put the airport on the

ballot again. His colleagues Cynthia Coad and Chuck Smith were

baffled -- and Cynthia Coad even called for an immediate recess. But

Silva’s vote stood for the day, until he backtracked. But then it was

too late. His “confused” vote delayed the Navy’s Record of Decision

by a month, which in turn pushed it to April 2002 after the election.

Otherwise, the Navy would have conveyed the base to the county before

the March election.

Silva’s actions make me wonder if he did not cut a deal with South

County. Specifically, in exchange for him sabotaging El Toro, he

would not face a candidate against him that year. In fact, he ran

unopposed, while Cynthia Coad was hammered with hundreds of thousands

of dollars of malicious negative advertising from South County that

led to her defeat. As a result, Silva is now in a powerless 2-3 board

minority, and anything he now says on behalf of El Toro is moot. He’s

a day late and a dollar short.

The end result of no El Toro is that John Wayne and Long Beach

airports (which affect his district) are two of a whopping 15

airports that made the Federal Aviation Administration’s list of

needing expansion by 2013. So, Silva fiddles while the Second

District burns. And to think that he now wants to further his

political career by running for the state Assembly after his

supervisor term expires.

REX RICKS

Huntington Beach

The Daily Pilot editorializes that El Toro is no longer an option

and a “solution” to growing utilization of John Wayne Airport must be

found. “The Airport Working Group, which recently settled its

remaining legal differences with the city of Irvine over the El Toro

issue, needs to sink their teeth into a new fight.”

If we have learned anything from Orange County’s failed effort to

push an unwanted airport at El Toro or Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn’s

beleaguered attempt at a $9-billion face-lift for Los Angeles

International Airport, it is how not to pursue solutions. In both

cases, a plan was developed without full participation by the

stakeholders who rebelled against either being ignored or invited to

comment at the tail end of the process.

For better or for worse, the Southern California Regional Assn. of

Governments has developed the official Regional Transportation Plan

that becomes the blueprint for federal funding. Bowing to political

pressures, the association’s plan for the year 2030 avoids proposing

that Los Angeles, Long Beach or John Wayne airports add an ounce of

new capacity. Instead, the group forecasts that nearly all growth in

Orange County passengers will use Ontario and March airports. How we

get there is left largely to us to work out.

How Orange County residents and visitors fly is a question that

needs to be addressed by the broad community of stakeholders. It is

not just Newport Beach’s issue. It concerns Disneyland, which

generates the largest share of Orange County’s aviation demand. It

concerns the air carriers. It concerns every community near a flight

path, highway or rail line that may be utilized and it concerns

travelers.

Asking a belligerent in the past airport wars -- and especially

the Airport Working Group that lost and refuses to shake hands -- to

“sink its teeth into a new fight” guarantees failure. Orange County

needs an aviation peace treaty and a post-war reconstruction effort.

The working group’s antagonistic style is a turnoff to other

stakeholders and hardly merits more than a seat at the table and

certainly not a leadership role.

LEONARD KRANSER

Dana Point

* EDITOR’S NOTE: Leonard Kranser is the editor of the anti-El Toro

website https://www.eltoroairport.org.

The Daily Pilot is totally correct when it says we need an

alternate airport on our radar screen, because John Wayne Airport is

growing so fast it will soon exceed capacity, and even your headline

is good. But the Pilot is wrong when it lapses into anti-El Toro

airport rhetoric by saying “an airport at El Toro is gone,” and

quotes out-of-context comments by El Toro supporter Supervisor Jim

Silva.

Yes, the arguments for the planned El Toro Airport are as valid

today as they were two, five or 10 years ago, while El Toro opponents

were denying the need, but now, apparently, agree there is a need,

and Costa Mesa and Newport Beach politicians must not abdicate.

Fortunately, the airport is there. It exists and does not have to

be built. All we have to do is turn on the lights. The Navy is in a

quandary over pollution. Yes, the Navy may just decide to turn the

airport over to Los Angeles to run, and this solves the problems of

pollution and propriety, while making Silva happy.

DONALD NYRE

Newport Beach