FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Meg Waters 949-718-4977,  Richard Jacobs, Esq. 415-434-1600  Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk & Rabkin

IRVINE, CA – May 17, 2001 – Tomorrow the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority (ETRPA) and Paul D. Eckles will file suit in Orange County Superior Court against the Orange County Board of Supervisors and the County of Orange for illegally diverting $8 million of John Wayne Airport funds into a massive public relations campaign to overcome voter opposition to an airport at El Toro.

The suit alleges that the Board of Supervisors violated federal aviation law that requires an airport’s general revenue funds to be used only for that airport, airport-related facilities or the presently existing airport system. In March, the County approved the diversion of $5 million to the Orange County Regional Airport Authority ("OCRAA") to run the public relations campaign. OCRAA then contracted with Townsend, Raimundo, Besler & Usher, and John M. Wagner, for the campaign. In May, the County diverted nearly $3 million more to Amies Communications for an expansion of its public relations efforts. OCRAA, the Townsend firm, Wagner, and the Amies firm have also been named in the litigation.

Revenue generated by John Wayne Airport must be sufficient to cover airport operating costs, maintenance and capital improvements, and to repay bonds issued for the airport’s construction. According to the John Wayne Airport 2001 Business Plan, "The funding provided by JWA for reuse planning [at El Toro] represents a significant portion of the Airport’s cash reserves….Continued utilization of JWA cash reserves as the primary funding source for aviation reuse planning could result in fee increases to the passengers and other Airport clients." This action is precisely what the federal law seeks to prevent.

ETRPA and Eckles also charge that the County violated California environmental law by its diversion of funds for El Toro airport purposes. Under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), an agency must wait until an environmental impact report (EIR) is complete before deciding whether to select and approve any project that could have significant environmental effects. The EIR for El Toro is not expected to be completed for several months, but the County nonetheless has announced it intends to approve an El Toro airport. "The purpose of an environmental impact report is to determine the impacts of a project and whether or not it should be selected. In this case, the County has admitted it has already decided to proceed with an airport, and to then use the EIR later as an after-the-fact justification for why it did," ETRPA attorney Richard Jacobs said.

According to Eckles, Executive Director of ETRPA, "The County’s actions quite clearly violate CEQA. On top of that, the funds they used to make those expenditures were illegally taken from John Wayne’s cash reserves. The County has successfully found a way to violate two laws at once."

California law permits this kind of "taxpayer" lawsuit, and for the Court to order the parties who received the illegally spent funds to pay the money back to the County. For that reason, the complaint seeks recovery of the nearly $8 million, if it is paid by the County, from OCRAA, the Townsend firm, the Amies firm, and Wagner.