Alternative El Toro plan gets boost

Paul Clinton

NEWPORT BEACH -- Supporters of an alternate El Toro airport proposal

got a shot in the arm this week when a coalition of North County cities

endorsed their once-dismissed plan.

The board of the Orange County Regional Airport Authority, which

counts 14 North County cities as members, gave its blessing to a concept

that has become known as the V-plan.

In a March 18 letter to Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman

Cynthia Coad, the group’s executive director, Art Bloomer, said the

V-plan should now be embraced. He urged the board to continue to pursue

an airport for the closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, even though

county voters chose a Great Park by approving Measure W on March 5.

A group billing itself as the New Millennium Group submitted an

initiative to the county March 7 that would return aviation zoning to the

base and allow planners to realign the runways into a “V” pattern.

Plan supporters say planes could then take off to the southwest over

undeveloped land, instead of heading over homes in Irvine, Lake Forest

and other cities. The county’s airport proposal for the base had planes

heading north and east.

Bloomer urged county leaders to support the measure, known as the

Reasonable Airport, Park and Nature Preserve Initiative.

“This initiative facilitates the development of a modern, safe and

efficient airport at El Toro which protects the quality of life of all

Orange County residents,” Bloomer wrote in the letter.

Until now, no local group involved in the El Toro quagmire has

supported the concept. County airport planners reviewed the plan as part

of the environmental review of an airport, but dismissed it as

unworkable.

Supporters of the V-plan, which was developed chiefly by retired

Newport Beach engineer Charles Griffin, were bolstered by the news.

Griffin said he wasn’t surprised the county’s voters turned away the

county’s airport at the ballot box.

“I felt it was something the people would vote against, which they

did,” Griffin said. “If we’re going to have an airport there at all, we

need to have acceptance by the people.”

Griffin and his group have re-christened the initiative as the “Pilots

V-plan,” because some airline pilots have said they prefer it.

In October, the Air Line Pilots Assn. endorsed the plan. Villa Park

Councilman Bob McGowan, a former United Airlines pilot, has also signed

on as a supporter.