‘Power in numbers’

Costa Mesa and Newport Beach city officials are putting past disagreements aside and joining forces to keep a lid on growth at John Wayne Airport.

The two cities plan to hold a joint city council meeting within the next few months to discuss funding for a study on using public transportation to divert passengers from John Wayne to other airports. The cities also will discuss how the two cities can better work together on airport issues, Costa Mesa City Manager Allan Roeder said.

“Both cities are impacted by John Wayne — they may be impacted to differing degrees but both cities are impacted,” Roeder said. “Increasingly, no one city can deal with the potential expansion of John Wayne — it’s really larger than one city.”

An agreement that sets annual passenger limits at John Wayne at 10.3 million is set to expire in 2010 and a subsequent cap of 10.8 million passengers will end in 2015.

Concerns are growing in both communities over possible expansion when the passenger cap agreement expires.

“It [John Wayne] really affects both cities,” Newport Beach Mayor Ed Selich said. “I think we have a lot of common issues — I think it’s good to get together and talk about it.”

Both cities have made issues surrounding John Wayne a priority in recent months.

The Newport Beach City Council will vote tonight on hiring a new consultant at its meeting tonight to work with community groups on the John Wayne Airport issue.

The Costa Mesa City Council voted to adopt a strongly worded resolution opposing potential expansion at John Wayne Airport in March. The policy is similar to Newport’s official stance against expansion.

Costa Mesa and Newport Beach are using funding from the Orange County Transportation Authority’s Go Local program for a joint study to examine ways the Metrolink commuter rail system could ease road and air traffic at John Wayne Airport.

“We really need to make sure that is done locally, and we need to make sure we are communicating well because we both want to see what comes out of the study,” Newport Beach City Manager Homer Bludau said.

The Go Local program, which began in 2006, provides funding for studies for cities to examine ways they can improve access to the Metrolink system.

“There’s power in numbers,” Costa Mesa Councilwoman Katrina Foley said. “We need to develop a partnership so we can have greater impact on potential expansion at John Wayne.”

The joint effort between the two cities marks a new shift toward teamwork between the two cities. Costa Mesa and Newport Beach have clashed in the past over annexation rights.

Newport Beach voted 6-1 to move forward with the annexation application of Santa Ana Country Club and a nearby residential neighborhood in February, even though city staff recommended the city let the application expire rather than risk a land battle with Costa Mesa over who should get the property. Costa Mesa has a sphere of influence over both the neighborhood and the country club and had tried unsuccessfully in the past to annex them.

The two cities also will have to work together on issues related to Banning Ranch, a roughly 400-acre undeveloped chunk of land featuring wetlands and bluffs along West Coast Highway and the Santa Ana River. Newport Beach recently formed a committee to look into buying the land and preserving it, but Newport Banning Ranch LLC, the private management team that oversees Banning Ranch, also hopes to develop the land for housing, a hotel and shopping in the area.

Heavy development on the land could affect traffic on some Costa Mesa roads, and Newport Banning Ranch officials said they will work with both cities as their plans for development evolve.

The Orange County Local Agency Forming Committee, which oversees county annexations, rejected Costa Mesa’s request for a sphere of influence in Banning Ranch earlier this year.

Both cities have shown an interest in annexing the land.