Cities unite for talks on airports

In an unprecedented meeting of the city councils of Newport Beach and Costa Mesa, the two cities agreed to share the cost of fighting John Wayne Airport expansion and hold annual meetings to discuss airport issues among other actions.

Council members at the meeting Tuesday night called it “historic” and “monumental,” saying that presenting a united front to the Orange County Board of Supervisors, the Federal Aviation Administration and other decision-making bodies would give the cities more bargaining power.

The officials voted unanimously for the memorandum of understanding between the cities.

Both Costa Mesa and Newport Beach politicians have frequently opposed increases in the amount of passengers flying out of John Wayne, saying that the noise flights generate deteriorates residents’ quality of life, but up until this point Newport Beach has been far more active in doing something about it.

Newport Beach negotiated the initial agreement with the airport that caps passengers at 10.8 million per year, and during the battle to establish an airport at El Toro — a proposal favored by both cities — Newport Beach spent about $2 million over a two-year period lobbying for the action.

“It’s time for the rest of us to step up and take a little bit of the financial responsibility off of Newport Beach,” Costa Mesa City Manager Allan Roeder said.

The memorandum also called for Costa Mesa and Newport Beach to reach out to other “corridor cities,” like Santa Ana, Tustin, Orange and Irvine, to get them to join in the effort.

Newport Beach Councilman Steve Rosansky applauded the idea, but said it wasn’t enough to just include nearby cities, the whole county should be invited to come on board so that a consensus among the county supervisors could be guaranteed.

The night’s other order of business was to hear a presentation on the results of a study commissioned by both cities using $200,000 in funds from the Orange County Transportation Authority.

As part of a program called “Go Local,” cities throughout Orange County were each given $100,000 to study possible ground transportation possibilities connecting the cities to the Metrolink system.

The study included a survey of about 2,500 John Wayne travelers who were asked where they were coming from, where they were going and why.

The survey aimed to assess the feasibility of people who drive to the airport taking public transportation instead.

Lead consultant Peggy Ducey determined that most passengers come from three pockets: the Disneyland area in Anaheim, Newport-Mesa and a portion of South County. Getting the Newport-Mesa and South County travelers to shuttle out to Ontario Airport instead of John Wayne might be difficult, but the Anaheim demographic could be swayed, according to the study.

“If you want to get people to use other airports, you need to target a certain market,” Ducey said.

People headed to the pocket around Anaheim are mostly vacationers headed to Disneyland or the Anaheim Convention Center that could be convinced to fly into Ontario if there were an easy, low-cost way to get from the airport to Anaheim, according to Ducey.

Vacationers around Anaheim, Ducey said, are often paying their own expenses, so cost matters. Also, many Disneyland visitors already use shuttles and other forms of public transportation, so they wouldn’t be completely averse to it.

“I think you have a real opportunity to move people from Anaheim to the Ontario Airport,” Newport Beach Councilman Keith Curry said.

The agreement to share airport-related costs with Newport Beach will inevitably cost Costa Mesa some money, but politicians and staffers said that spending the money was a better alternative than staying out of the fight.

“You have to look at the alternative: Roll over and do nothing and let adverse effects of the airport affect our quality of life,” Costa Mesa City Councilman Allan Mansoor said.

ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at alan.blank@latimes.com.