Flight-focused set vows to pursue airport

Alicia Robinson

Residents are still divided on the best solution to the city’s

airport woes, but they haven’t stopped talking about clamping down on

traffic at John Wayne Airport.

The airport could reach its negotiated cap of 10.3 million

passengers per year by 2006 if passenger levels keep growing at their

current rate, Airport Working Group President Tom Naughton told about

25 local residents at the Wednesday night meeting of Speak Up

Newport, a public education group, at the Newport Beach Yacht Club.

John Wayne Airport is restricted by a legal agreement to 10.3

million passengers a year through 2011, when the cap goes up to 10.8

million until 2015. The Airport Working Group was part of the

negotiations with the city of Newport Beach, Orange County and

citizens group Stop Polluting Our Newport, which led to the cap.

Naughton said his group will continue to pursue a commercial

airport at the closed El Toro Marine air base, which Orange County

voters rejected by voting to rezone the land to a park in 2002.

“They have all these runways to tear up out there,” he said.

“Until those runways are gone, I’m going to do everything I can.”

Planning for the Southern California region doesn’t realistically

address growth and other transportation problems predicted in the

next 20 years or so, Naughton said.

For instance, a 2004 report from the Southern California Assn. of

Governments assumed the 192 million air travelers expected annually

by 2030 could be allocated to existing airports. Some communities,

however, are against expanding their airports, and the plan depends

on a multibillion-dollar train system that would take years to build,

he said.

Some residents say any further expansion at John Wayne Airport

will ruin their quality of life and property values.

Naughton urged those who want to revive an airport at El Toro to

write their congressman, and when it was pointed out that Newport

Beach Rep. Chris Cox has come out against an El Toro airport,

Naughton suggested writing Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta.

While some residents remain firmly in support of an El Toro

airport, others think an airport solution will come from building a

coalition with surrounding communities that Orange County alienated

by rejecting the El Toro plan.

“[An El Toro airport] is radioactive politically,” resident Dan

Emory said. “Wasting time on it is basically spending time on

something that is not going to get you anywhere.”

Emory is not alone in abandoning El Toro as a solution to the

area’s transportation problems. AirFair, another Newport-Mesa

citizens’ group, was formed in 2002 as an alternative to the Airport

Working Group because some people saw El Toro as a dead issue,

AirFair Chairwoman Melinda Seely said.

AirFair had scheduled a public presentation on airport issues

Wednesday in Costa Mesa.