MAILBAG:

I read a very interesting article by Tom Szulga in your paper (“North and south counties should unite for AirPark,” March 19) that seemed to bring some servility to the ongoing arguments related to the air transportation needs of Orange County.

For years I worked with a little organization called El Toro Today, and we investigated just about every aspect of the El Toro issue possible. I am convinced almost everyone involved in the El Toro re-use debate was following and controlled by agendas for their neighborhoods. They were not working as a community to design a reasonable airport solution.

I believe EIR 573, which proposed a possible 39-million-passenger airport, was a very inhospitable and unworkable plan for everyone in the county. From the very beginning I believed the Great Park was a ploy for those supporting local developers to confuse the discussion and ensure El Toro would never become a commercial airport. Everyone wants a park, and no one wants an airport until you have to fly, and then they want an airport close by.

The economic picture surrounding El Toro, the city of Irvine and, in reality, the entire county makes a Great Park as proposed by Measure W almost impossible. There is no money to build the park promised to the people.

With 104,000 acres of parks already in South Orange County, we do not need another park. With the ever-increasing demand for air travel in Orange County we will very definitely need additional airport space.

The two main runways at El Toro are still intact. We need county leaders who can work through worthless rhetoric used to protect everyone’s turf during the battle for the re-use of El Toro. We need leaders who can step forward and facilitate a process that can truly meet the needs of our county and ensure a better quality of life.

What is fair to both North Orange County and South Orange County? Our future demands that we work together and find solutions to our air travel needs that will benefit us all.

BILL TURNER

Costa Mesa