More Volleys in the Airport vs. Park Campaign

Re “Live from Irvine: El Toro Airport vs. Great Park,” July 18:

While many articles get high marks, this one falls short. While the anti-airport view got its licks in, the other side went wanting in the article.

Didn’t any points get your attention for the other side? Maybe that an airport gives our children a likely income source and boost to the economy here in Orange County, against a park which gives us another expense for all time?

Or maybe that a park is the euphemism for “not in my backyard” from South County residents? I grew up under the south flight pattern of Kennedy International Airport, and it didn’t hurt.

We did tell people on the telephone to wait until the plane passed or miss a line of comedy on TV. But I was too young to appreciate what it meant to Queens, N.Y., in terms of jobs and economy to have the airport.

Jeff Pine

Orange

*

Apparently after three false starts, the proponents of the “Great Park” have finally fixed all the technical and legal flaws in their petition and have now sent their minions back to the streets begging for signatures.

It is clear that in their rush to stop an airport at any cost, they were careless in their effort to file a proper petition by fumbling technicalities such as excluding required maps, mislabeling directions and so forth. All of this is rationalized by their vision of a park as an oasis for Orange County citizens that is larger than Balboa, Golden Gate and New York City’s Central Park combined.

All this land plus every conceivable cultural and recreational facility is promised without a single dollar required from Orange County taxpayers. Even the tag line on their mailers is “imagine.” However, their inability to create a simple ballot petition, much less a complex initiative, makes their vision of an enormous park without taxes seem more like a mirage.

Tom Anderson

Newport Beach

*

Re “Air Passenger Count for O.C. 33% Too High,” July 9:

A Southern California Assn. of Governments study overestimated the demand for Orange County by 4 million annual passengers.

Supervisor Cynthia P. Coad was quoted that building a new airport at El Toro, even as small as 18.8 million passengers annually, will provide such an economic boost and create such a strong economy that residents and their children won’t have to leave Orange County.

Her statement is farfetched. In 1996, former Supervisor Bill Steiner offered a compromise by downsizing El Toro to 18 million passengers. But county staff and their consultants rejected his proposal on the basis that such a small airport is economically not feasible. The county selected 28.8 million passengers as the preferred option.

Is Coad in possession of a new study that contradicts that earlier assessment? If such a study exists, she needs to substantiate her statements by providing documented proof about the economic viability.

Paul Willems

Laguna Niguel

*

If Orange County was to have an international airport, the county supervisors of the 1950s or 1960s should have acted at that time, prior to Orange County’s major growth.

Orange County is about quality of life. That is what attracts new residents and sophisticated businesses with high-paying jobs. People I know would prefer to drive to Ontario or LAX rather than have aircraft traffic over their neighborhoods.

I was quite surprised many years ago when John Wayne Airport was allowed to become a commercial airport with jet flights, which has to be devastating to the quality of life for those homes near the flight paths.

I think what we see now is a conflict between a majority of residents, who want to maintain quality of life, and political contributors, who want an airport to maximize their finances. Since it’s political contributors who get politicians elected, I think it becomes a real dilemma for those elected. Do they go with the folks who voted for them or do they go with the political contributors who got them elected?

County government should have been working for years to improve transportation to Ontario and other inland airports to reduce the flights out of John Wayne Airport and make air travel as convenient as possible for Orange County residents.

Jack Holmes

Fountain Valley