Newport women lead the fight against more flights

JOSEPH N. BELL

I met for coffee recently with two Newport Beach women who are

helping to recruit an army of Orange County residents pledged to

making life miserable for any public officials who attempt to raise,

ever again, the current limit on commercial passengers or flights out

of John Wayne Airport. Jean Watt and Melinda Seely were representing

a political action committee named AirFair that was formed two years

ago solely for that purpose. If their focus and determination were

reflections of AirFair as a whole, it may turn out to be an important

player in the fight to stop John Wayne growth right where it is.

I would be happy to lead the cheers. I think about such matters a

lot more in the summer, when we try to talk with dinner guests on our

patio, or I sit out there with a drink trying to listen to music or a

ballgame over the thunder of planes taking off from the airport every

few minutes. It was bad before the last series of compromises were

negotiated two years ago. It is infinitely worse since concessions

were agreed to then that allow 12 more noisy daily flights, open six

more gates and raise the ceiling of 8.4 million passengers in the

original 1985 settlement agreement to 10.8 million by the time the

current agreement expires in 2015.

Where it goes from there is what concerns the members of AirFair.

They don’t want to be devoured by increments. Neither do I, and I’m

delighted to see someone in this imbroglio that is fresh out of

concessions. I wish that might have happened sooner, especially when

El Toro was still in play. But better late than not at all.

What AirFair is up to, Jean Watt said, is “creating a climate in

which it would be political death to any officeholder who supports

further expansion of JWA. We want AirFair to be important to JWA for

the same reason the Sierra Club -- which generated thousands of

letters in opposition -- is important to the expansion of toll roads

in Orange County. We are tree-huggers, symbolically tying ourselves

to the tree of JWA expansion.”

According to Watt and Seely, Orange County Supt. Tom Wilson told

them not to come in at the last minute with their objections to yet

more compromises when the current cap agreement runs out in 2015, but

rather come in early in the game with strong support on hand. That’s

what AirFair has set out to do.

“What we hope to accomplish before caps become an issue again is

to have all of the Orange County corridor cities involved in this

effort,” said Watt, a former Newport Beach City Councilwoman. “Tens

of thousands of people saying, ‘No more.’ Then someone in authority

will have to listen and do something about it. I suppose this is a

kind of civil disobedience. Causing pain for legislators. Somebody

simply saying a flat ‘No.’”

Achieving significant numbers of activist supporters requires both

organization and money to fund AirFair activities. Right now, those

activities consist mostly of the creation of mailing pieces, research

on the effect of further air-traffic growth, development of a website

(https://www.JWAirfair.com) and presentations to community groups and

homeowners associations. So far, six of the latter have signed on.

AirFair hopes to attract many more.

All of which brings up two obvious questions. First, whom is

AirFair trying to convince by delivering “tens of thousands” of

supporters saying “no more caps?” And, second, since AirFair is

adamantly opposed to any further expansion of John Wayne Airport,

what does it suggest as an alternate solution to the clear problem of

escalating demand in Orange County for airport facilities?

To the first question, Watt and Seely said they would direct the

primary heat on our elected representatives at every level. AirFair

leaders are quite aware that there are also governmental and private

agencies that have critical voices, but they feel strongly that if

they make it clear that impressive numbers of voters are simply not

going to stand for any further expansion of John Wayne, “someone in

authority” as Seely put it, “will have to listen and do something

about it. We want to broaden discourse to the degree that it will

force legislators to respond.”

As to alternate solutions, AirFair simply opts out. “This isn’t

about solutions but rather about presenting a problem in a very loud

way,” Seely said. “It isn’t our role to come up with answers. It is

the role of the people we elect. We’re simply trying to require

government to look for solutions that absolutely do not include any

more concessions to the expansion of JWA.”

When I pointed out that this is essentially the inflexible

position South County took in torpedoing a commercial airport at El

Toro, Seely said: “Sure it was. But we have much more legitimate

reasons for taking that stance than South County ever did.”

She might have added that South County also had upwards of $10

million, a lot of high-powered publicity consultants, an activist

city government in Irvine and no ethical problems about either

stretching or ignoring the truth. AirFair lacks the first three -- it

was pleased that $1,000 in public contributions came in last month --

and has so far approached its mission almost gently. “We want

credibility,” Seely said, “before we start to lean on people.”

That’s all well and good, but the people they need to lean on --

Rep. Chris Cox comes to mind -- will require some serious leaning. So

will South County pols like Irvine mayor Larry Agran, who offered to

join the fight against the expansion of John Wayne when he was trying

to soften opposition to his mythical Great Park but hasn’t been heard

from on this issue since.

AirFair -- which has no connection with any other public or

private airport group -- came into the fray when El Toro was no

longer generally considered an option. Its position on the sliver of

hope that El Toro is still in play is simply to ignore it -- along

with any recriminations about how El Toro was lost -- on the grounds

that this would only diffuse AirFair’s focus on preventing any

further expansion of John Wayne.

The flag which AirFair is carrying into battle reads: “10.8 Let’s

Lock the Gate.”

“That’s where we’re coming from,” Watt said. “Somebody has to do

something, and this is the best way we know to go about it.”

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.