El Toro fight rolls on

Barbara Diamond and Alicia Robinson

As the date of U.S. Navy auction of the former Marine air base at El

Toro nears, plans for a commercial airport there would seem to dead

in the water.

Not necessarily.

“It’s not over until the fat lady sings -- and I am the fat lady,”

said Councilwoman Cheryl Kinsman, who represents the city on the El

Toro Reuse Planning Authority.

The authority met at a special meeting Monday night in Irvine. A

closed session was held to discuss the initiation of potential

litigation but no action was reported.

“There are some very serious threats on the horizon,” said

Kinsman, who has urged continued vigilance by opponents of the

airport and has fought attempts to cut the city’s financial support

to the authority.

The Fullerton City Council contacted U.S. Transportation Secretary

Norman Mineta last week to propose that the U.S. Navy to hand over

the base to the department, which then could lease it to Fullerton to

operate an airport. The idea of a city operating an airport at El

Toro is a new twist.

However, City Manager Ken Frank said Fullerton is the least of the

reuse group’s concerns.

“Even the Fullerton City Council is split on the proposal,” Frank

said.

Los Angeles, which would dearly love to offload some of its

flights to an international airport in Orange County, poses a much

bigger threat.

“L.A. has a bill, I think it is Senate Bill 23, to create a

regional airport authority that would include Orange and L.A.

counties, with the power of eminent domain,” Frank said. “It is a

last ditch attempt by L.A. to get an airport at El Toro.

“ETRPA is talking to legislators and lobbying against it.”

There also has been speculation that L.A. would bid on the El Toro

property, according to the reuse authority’s executive director Paul

Eckles.

“We are monitoring that,” Eckles said. “L.A. has a lot of money

and it already owns Ontario International Airport in San Bernardino

County and airports in Palmdale and Van Nuys.”

The authority, a coalition of 10 South County cities and Irvine,

known as ETRPA, led the opposition to the construction of a

commercial airport on the site of the former U.S. Marine Air Base.

Laguna Beach was an early opponent of a commercial airport at El

Toro.

“We were the first city to ask the county to be included in the

planning process,” former Mayor Kathleen Blackburn said.

She was the city’s first representative to ETRPA, warning

residents of the threat to their quality of life if the airport was

approved.

Former Federal Aviation Administration official Don Segner opposed

the airport based on his experience in aviation, not because he lived

in Laguna Beach. Segner is a retired World War II and Korea U.S.

Marine Corps fighter pilot who flew out of the El Toro base, tested

planes for the corps and for Lockheed. After a stint in management,

he was appointed to the FAA during Reagan Administration.

“I know a lot about airports and a lot about airplanes,” Segner

said. “El Toro wasn’t practical for an international airport for the

airlines. Why go there when they could go into LAX.

He also said the El Toro proposal posed many safety concerns.

A ballot measure, passed in 2000, prohibited the construction of

airports or prisons near residential development without the consent

of the voters, but was overturned by the courts, Eckles said.

In 2002, Orange County voters rejected a commercial airport at El

Toro and approved a zoning change to convert the property to parkland

with commercial and recreational components.

Irvine annexed the property and is the author and implementer of

the Great Park concept, Eckles said.

Nothing can be done until the U.S. Navy auctions the four major

parcels that comprise the former air base, scheduled for Jan. 5. The

parcels will be auctioned separately.

Navy officials recently rejected a $255 million bid from an Orange

County military-family support group to renovate the base commissary

and provide affordable housing on the property for military families.

“The expectation is that the buyers will give a great portion of

the property back to Irvine and funding for the Great Park, in return

for enhanced development rights,” Eckles said.

However, challenges to the Great Park have continued to pop up.

Fullerton is just the latest entry in the airport sweepstakes.

In response to the Fullerton proposal, Orange County Supervisors

Tom Wilson and Bill Campbell promptly fired off a letter dated Dec. 8

on behalf of the county asking the transportation department to

ignore the Fullerton request, Eckles said.

Fullerton is reviving the notion of an airport at El Toro because

Orange County is headed for a shortage of air-traffic capacity by

2013, according to federal transportation department reports,

Fullerton City Councilman Leland Wilson said.

“Something has got to be done and the longer it goes without a

solution, the harder it’s going to be to do,” said Wilson, who chairs

the Orange County Regional Airport Authority, which supported

Fullerton’s proposal.

The airport authority is composed of 10 North County communities,

including Costa Mesa.

City officials there said the Fullerton proposal had only an

outside chance of success.

“I think even the most loyal and ardent advocates for an airport

at El Toro would concede that this is a long shot,” Costa Mesa City

Manager Allen Roeder said.

Newport Beach also supported a commercial airport at El Toro and

spent about $3 million pushing for it, in the hopes of relieving the

air traffic over its environs.

“I’ll be watching this pretty closely,” Newport City Manager Steve

Bromberg said. “It [El Toro Airport] keeps getting pronounced dead,

but not getting buried.”

The Newport Beach-based Airport Working Group, which has clung

tenaciously to an El Toro airport, favored Fullerton’s proposal.

“I think it’s great,” spokesman Tom Naughton said. “I think it

makes a lot of sense.”

Of course, the planes out of El Toro would not be flying over

Fullerton, Costa Mesa or Newport Beach every three minutes, 24/7.

And even if John Wayne Airport continued to operate on its current

schedule, it closes down from before midnight to 7 a.m.

“They are very strict about the curfew,” said Laguna Beach

Planning Commissioner Norm Grossman, an early opponent of a

commercial airport at El Toro. “I’ve been told if a plane is 30

seconds late, they send it to L.A.”

Should a commercial airport be approved at El Toro, the notion

that John Wayne could be reduced to a general aviation airport for

private plane use, with Fullerton clearing its skies by transferring

its general aviation airport to Newport is pie in the sky, according

to Grossman.

“There was talk in the early days of the original ETRPA of making

El Toro a general aviation airport and leaving John Wayne

commercial,” Grossman said. “In that case, Fullerton could have moved

its airport to El Toro.

“I think people are still dreaming, but it would be nice to put a

nail in the coffin.”