El Toro dream fades some more

June Casagrande

The settlement on Friday of lingering lawsuits from pre-Measure W

days further dampened the hopes of locals who continue to push for a

commercial airport at the closed El Toro Marine Air Base.

Though officials say that settlement of three lawsuits between the

county and the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority is merely a

formality, they also admitted that the tide is running counter to

plans for a new airport to take the load off John Wayne Airport.

“It’s one more dart at El Toro,” Newport Beach Mayor Steve

Bromberg said.

That is a problem for all of the county, airport supporters

stressed.

“No one to this day has a solution for satisfying Orange County’s

future demand for passenger and cargo flights,” said Tom Naughton,

president of the Airport Working Group, one of the agencies that

maintains that an airport must be built at El Toro or elsewhere in

Orange County to accommodate future demand. Opponents to plans for a

second airport in Orange County said the solution lies elsewhere.

Meg Waters, spokeswoman for the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority,

said that the El Toro option is long dead and that Ontario is the

best place to expand flights because it’s in the area where the

biggest population growth in the region is expected to occur.

“I hope this is the beginning of a time when South County and the

city of Newport Beach can start working together on issues like

affordable housing and water quality,” Waters said. “We have a lot

more in common than we have differences.”

Allan Songstad, chairman of the planning authority, added in a

statement: “[The settlement] is a formal acknowledgment by the county

that it will no longer devote any public resources in an attempt to

plan or build a second Orange County airport at El Toro. This opens

up the door for the Inland Empire to expand their airports to meet

the tremendous growth projected to occur there in the next 20 years.”

The settlement ended two lawsuits by the planning authority

against the county about the environmental documents for an El Toro

airport.

In a statement, planning authority attorney Richard C. Jacobs

noted: “The settlement of the [environmental review] cases closes the

book on the environmental review process for an airport at El Toro.

If the county or any other entity should try to resume airport

planning at a later date, they cannot rely on these environmental

documents or [the planning authority] would have the right to resume

this litigation.”

Friday’s settlement also put to rest ongoing litigation about the

county’s public information campaign on El Toro. In that suit, the

planning authority alleged that the county’s information campaign

about the airport amount to an illegal use of public funds to promote

the El Toro option.

* JUNE CASAGRANDE covers Newport Beach and John Wayne Airport.

She may be reached at (949) 574-4232 or by e-mail at

[email protected].