More on El Toro debate

I am 100% in favor of the use of El Toro as an international airport.

I think Mayor James Hahn should be commended for his latest attempts

to save this valuable asset.

All of Orange County would benefit from the use of the existing

airport when converted to an international one. Rep. Christopher Cox

should hang his head in shame for not representing the entire

population of his district instead of the monied few he seems to

prefer. I hope the voters will remember this when election time comes

around.

OLIVE M. MAXWELL

Costa Mesa

It is laughable and a red herring that opponents to an El Toro

airport now use the argument that Orange County residents are against

an airport because they don’t want another Los Angeles International

Airport there.

Well, how about residents in Orange County, who want an

international airport at El Toro instead of 5,000 homes and only 10%

of the land to be used as a park? Who really speaks on this issue?

Obviously, the developers have won with their specious arguments

against an airport and now they have found a boogieman.

ED HEPNER

Corona del Mar

I live under the approach to John Wayne Airport. The airplanes

approaching from the south make their U-turn over my driveway and are

so low I can see the wheels on their landing gear.

I am not complaining.

The noise is negligible outside and inaudible inside my home. I

use the airport several times a year and am glad to bear some of the

burden of its use.

My hypocritical neighbors in south Orange County are willing to

jam an enormous regional air traffic load onto tiny John Wayne

Airport (less than 500 acres with zero noise buffer zone around it).

I wonder what the outcome of various ballot issues regarding the

airports would have been if we could have prevented anyone who used

(or whose visiting relatives used) the airport from voting against an

El Toro regional airport?

I believe that all of the South County residents who voted against

airport use of El Toro should be compelled to wear a large red “H”

(for hypocrite) on their shirt. El Toro has 4,500 acres (10 times

larger than John Wayne Airport) and has an enormous noise buffer zone

from which residential use was excluded. The nearest residence is

miles from the landing strips. Our local air cargo and long distance

air travel could originate here instead of 40 or 50 miles away at LAX

or Ontario.

Land values around El Toro would have gone up as they did near the

regional airports at Dallas/Ft. Worth and Phoenix. The hypocrites

would have quickly abandoned JWA to get the nonstop long-distance

flights available at El Toro Airport. Two-hour long drives to LAX in

rush hour traffic would be an unpleasant memory.

The “Great Park” lie is now conveniently forgotten. The “no new

taxes” crowd made sure the park could not be funded, whereas a

regional airport would have been self funded with a zero tax burden.

If a regional airport had been built at El Toro, Larry Agran’s

demagogic, fear-mongering campaign would be remembered only as a

publicity wagon he was desperately trying to ride into “higher”

office. His ambitions are properly sunk along with his “Great Park”

swindle.

If the Feds or a regional airport authority can capture the

transportation value of the El Toro Airport, I will support their

plans.

ALAN NESTLINGER

Santa Ana

Another missed opportunity!

I was greatly encouraged when I learned of Mayor Hahn’s efforts to

lease El Toro for commercial airport use and dismayed to hear that

his idea wasn’t given serious consideration.

The loss of El Toro as the site for an international airport is

one of the great tragedies of this decade, resulting from

short-sighted “not in my backyard” thinking that was created, in my

opinion, by a misleading ad campaign suggesting a “Great Park,” which

is likely never to happen, along with other wildly speculative

statements capped by a bogus picture, created by a telephoto lens, of

runways dead-ending into mountains.

It’s easy to understand why our sports- and outdoors-loving

society would vote for a great park over an airport. People vote with

their heart. Who wouldn’t want a park? It’s like voting for

motherhood and apple pie. Unfortunately, the cost wasn’t factored in

-- the cost of finding another site to meet our spiraling demand for

air travel and the cost of developing the park.

El Toro was the only logical site within 100 miles for an airport

to ease the burden on Los Angeles International Airport and John

Wayne. I haven’t yet heard of a viable plan “B” to deal with the

issue. A location for a “Great Park,” if we really need one, wouldn’t

require 4,700 acres surrounded by buffer zones.

The South County folks who created the mandate to not use the

property for an airport are part of the reason we needed it in the

first place, considering the unfettered growth of that area, which

keeps moving the population center of Orange County south. I’m sure

South County’s plan “B” for more airport space is to extend the

runway at John Wayne out over the Back Bay or maybe just fill it in.

So now we will auction El Toro off to the highest bidder and watch

the developers gobble up the land that would be a park, and 10 years

from now we’ll be saying, “What ever happened to that park we voted

for?” as we make our two-hour drive to LAX.

NIGEL BAILEY

Corona del Mar