"Second El Toro Airport Proposal Hits a Downdraft"

Tuesday, May 28, 2002

Second Airport Proposal Hits a Downdraft
El Toro: Little grass-roots support and political lethargy hinder
V-plan, which calls for parks as well as runways. Backers concede they
won't get it on the November ballot.
By JEAN O. PASCO
The Los Angeles (CA) Times


A last-ditch effort to sell a different airport design for El Toro has
stalled, despite support from airline pilots and others who savaged
Orange County's proposed layout as unsafe.

The Reasonable Airport, Park and Nature Preserve initiative, which would
rotate runways at the former Marine base to send departing planes over
swaths of parkland, sputtered into limbo in recent weeks, hampered by
political lethargy and scant grass-roots action. Organizers concede they
won't meet a June 17 deadline to collect the 71,206 signatures needed to
qualify the measure for the November ballot.

The effort has fallen prey to a collective resignation among airport
backers who believe that after eight years of fighting, most county
residents would reject any commercial airfield at El Toro. "Even the
pro-airport [elected officials] say it's done, it's over and lie down
and play dead," said Robert E. McGowan, a Villa Park councilman and
former United Airlines pilot who helped develop the initiative. The
group has until mid-September to qualify the measure for the March
ballot.

The only chance of revival, McGowan said, is if a pending lawsuit
overturns the vote that approved Measure W, which rezoned El Toro for a
park and limited development.

"I still think it can come back if W is defeated," McGowan said. "I'm
just sitting back waiting for the next shoe to drop."

He has the support of the Air Line Pilots Assn. The union said the plan,
known as the V-plan and developed by retired aerospace engineer Charles
Griffin of Newport Beach, is safer and more efficient in Southern
California's crowded skies than the county's proposal.

But the Navy slowed the proposal's momentum last month when it labeled
the V-plan unreasonable and its environmental review ended a role for
the Federal Aviation Administration in El Toro's fate. That assessment
echoed a similar conclusion by county planners who found that sending
departing planes south could affect thousands of homes the Irvine Co.
plans to build.

Forces fighting an airport at El Toro dismissed the effort. Attorney
Rich Jacobs, who represents the 10-city El Toro Reuse Planning
Authority, said the group's proposal violates at least five state laws
regulating the form and content of initiative petitions and could be
struck down in court on any one of them.

At the same time, a pro-airport coalition of cities that endorsed the
V-plan initiative has been hampered by a lack of money and the
resignation of its executive director. Retired Gen. Art Bloomer stepped
down this month from the Orange County Regional Airport Authority, which
is a plaintiff in the lawsuit challenging Measure W.

Hoping to stoke interest in its quest, the New Millennium Group, which
formed three years ago to promote the V-plan, began a series of
newspaper advertisements this month to protest El Toro's fate. "Irvine's
land grab?" read an ad in the Daily Pilot, referring to Irvine's plan to
annex the base. The Navy has announced it will sell 3,700 acres to the
highest bidder and will work with Irvine to package the land for sale.
The remaining 1,000 acres are slated for a wildlife refuge.

In an e-mail distributed last week, New Millennium president Russell
Niewiarowski suggested another option: for the federal government to
close the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station and the Los Alamitos Armed
Forces Reserve Center and build an international airport in Seal Beach.

"Since El Toro is 'dead,' we should explore other viable options in
which Orange County can fulfill their share of future air transportation
demands," the e-mail says. "Seal Beach is, in fact, an ideal location
for an international airport."

Although the Bush administration has indicated it wants another round of
base closures in 2005, no potential candidates have been named.

Seal Beach Mayor Patty Campbell, who has long backed the V-plan, opposed
Niewiarowski's suggestion, saying it threatens to alienate V-plan
backers from northwest Orange County, where support has been highest.
She said the Los Alamitos base is too close to homes and to flight paths
for Long Beach Airport.

Niewiarowski said he will continue collecting signatures for an El Toro
airport but wants to explore other options, including Seal Beach and
expanding John Wayne Airport to 18 million passengers a year--triple its
current load. Though he lives in Santa Ana Heights, the neighborhood
most affected by airport noise, he supports expanding John Wayne "all
the way" if it remains the only airport in Orange County.


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