El Toro Info Site   The Grounding of El Toro

The Orange County Business Journal, December 5-11, 2005

See OCBJ Executive Editor Rick Reiff's introductory comments about the author and this story.
"Back to El Toro, Ahead to El Tunnel"
"History is written by the victors, as the saying goes."



The Grounding of El Toro
Viewpoint by Leonard Kranser


In November 1994, Orange County voters passed Measure A by a narrow margin, approving conversion of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station to a commercial airport. County government took command of the project and threw its full weight into designing and promoting an airport.

For the first time under the federal Base Realignment and Closure process, the impacted neighboring cities were cut out of the base reuse planning.

Eleven years later, after a divisive struggle that cost all parties more than $150 million, the airport is dead. How did airport advocates, with their early advantage in money and power, let the project unravel?

El Toro is an object lesson in how an aroused public “can beat City Hall.”

By 1997, the Newport Beach Daily Pilot fretted, “The ever-increasing displays of passion by airport opponents have some local airport proponents worried.”

By 2000, county CEO Jan Mittermeier, who lost her job when the project went badly, provided this headline quote to the Los Angeles Times: “El Toro might never fly … Lack of ‘passion’ in project backers makes its completion highly unlikely.”

I was both an activist who helped form the public’s opinion of the project, and a daily chronicler of information from both sides of the airport fight. This is my review of the crucial events that shaped the outcome.
 
Overreaching doomed the project.

County officials planned too big. In 1996, they proposed an El Toro airport five times the size of John Wayne to which all JWA commercial flights would be moved.

The prospects of a round-the-clock airport the size of San Francisco International in the heart of residential south Orange County—drawing heavy traffic from other counties throughout the region—galvanized opposition and destroyed any hope of compromise.

In response to the county decision against following an inclusive planning process, South County cities reactivated the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority to fight the airport.

The planning authority, chaired over the following years by dedicated member-city elected officials—Mike Ward, Richard Dixon, Susan Withrow, Mimi Walters and Allan Songstad—assembled a team of lawyers and consultants led by Executive Director Paul Eckles, a former Inglewood city manager with extensive experience in airport community and government affairs.

In 1997-98, the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority developed the Millennium Plan, a precursor to the Great Park.

Supervisor Bill Steiner cast the swing vote to include the planning authority’s non-aviation alternative along with the county’s preferred airport options in the El Toro Environmental Impact Report.

The plan’s mix of residences, job creating opportunities, central park and extensive recreational uses offered a popular reduction in pollution and vehicle traffic when compared to the huge airport.

The Millennium Plan also caught the Navy’s attention as a serious official alternative that could create market value for its land. Airport opponents gained new status in Washington, D.C.

As opposition to the huge airport grew, county leaders repeatedly scaled back their plan from the original 38 million annual passengers to 18 million. However, the damage was done. Pro-airport officials lost public support as they seemingly backed any airport plan at any cost.

The bungled flight demo hurt the county’s credibility.

In June 1999 the county bungled a high-profile public relations stunt, the El Toro flight demonstration. Chartered commercial airliners flew into and out of the base, along narrow flight paths intended to produce minimal noise impacts.

Both sides in the fight were certain that the carefully controlled demonstration would generate less than real world noise and would help the pro-airport cause.

Both sides were wrong.

Strong anti-airport emotions intensified residents’ reactions to the noise. County phone lines jammed with protests and voicemail boxes filled up with complaints. Hundreds of frustrated residents vented their anger in emails to the anti-airport Web site that were distributed to the press.

The newspapers had a field day. County staff hurt their own credibility by shooing reporters away from county noise measuring sites and withholding findings until irretrievable PR damage had been done.

Supervisor Chuck Smith, a leader of the pro-airport forces, admitted to the press that soundproofing should be provided for some homes.

Thousands of citizens throughout the county, who were nowhere near El Toro and heard nothing, became convinced that the planes were too loud.

Displaying petitions: volunteers in front of armored truck.At the time of the demos, volunteers were gathering signatures for anti-airport Measure F.

The rate of signature gathering immediately doubled.

Measure F’s qualification for the ballot and eventual overwhelming passage marked the start of the airport’s official demise.



Interim flights were blocked.

The county planned to start interim cargo flights soon after the Marines left in July 1999 in order to maintain El Toro’s airport status.

However, this necessitated obtaining legal control over the property through retrocession (transfer) of jurisdiction from the Navy. The El Toro Reuse Planning Authority delayed this procedural step for months with lobbying and environmental challenges.

On Dec. 3, 1999, the California State Lands Commission dealt county officials a devastating blow by voting to delay the fully expected transfer of jurisdiction from federal to local hands. It was one of the most crucial and most under-recognized victories in the long battle against the airport.

Weeks later, on Dec. 31, the clock ran out on a California bankruptcy recovery law that temporarily allowed OC supervisors to approve long-term leases by a simple 3-2 majority.

By the time the Lands Commission revisited retrocession in 2000, the Board of Supervisors needed a 4-1 vote, as required in other counties, to approve long-running air cargo leases.

With Tom Wilson and Todd Spitzer opposed, the board couldn’t get the fourth vote.

Had flights begun, the airport steamroller would have been nearly unstoppable. Instead, airport supporters never regained their momentum.

Measure F derailed airport plans. Campaign mailer: effective grassroots effort

Measure F, the Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative, pitted a grassroots army against the county government and Newport Beach.

Voters countywide embraced Measure F’s populist message that citizens should decide the location of airports, large jails and toxic dumps.

Measure F demonstrated the motivation, manpower and organizing skill of the grassroots airport opposition. Citizens for Safe and Healthy Communities’ volunteer leaders—Bill Kogerman, Denny Harris, Tris Krogius, Jim Davy and this writer, plus scores of area captains and committee members—were crucial to the airport’s eventual defeat. Airport proponents had nothing comparable.

Many hundreds of volunteers manned tables at markets and booths at fairs gathering a record breaking 195,000 signatures to put the initiative on the ballot. They raised the total cost of the campaign from private contributions.

Measure F passed 67.3% to 32.7%, winning in every city except Newport Beach and Costa Mesa.

While the courts eventually overturned Measure F, it was law from March 2000 until the final appeal in January 2002. During that time, the county was barred from airport planning and lobbying other than to complete an environmental impact report.

The pro-airport momentum was broken. Even before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, public interest in a new county airport had faded.

The subsequent March 2002 passage of Measure W, deploying many of the same volunteers, would wrap up the electoral demise of the airport.

FAA airspace analysis threw the county into disarray.

In August 2001, the Federal Aviation Administration completed an analysis of Southern California airspace, concluding that El Toro would severely disrupt air traffic at Long Beach and John Wayne.

Release of the report prior to Board of Supervisor certification of the El Toro Airport Environmental Impact Report would be a legal basis for challenging the Environmental Impact Report. Under political pressure from airport proponents, the release was stalled.

In a chaotic September board meeting, Supervisor Jim Silva shocked his pro-airport colleagues by briefly agreeing to put the airport to a public vote. The supervisors hastily adjourned without taking action.

At its next meeting, the Board committed a procedural error that kept them from voting on the matter.

The Environmental Impact Report did not receive its expected 3-2 approval until October, by which time Congressman Chris Cox had forced the release of the damaging FAA report.

An FAA administrator characterized takeoff routes for the county’s airport as “going the wrong way on a freeway.”

The county’s response, lifted out of context from the report that El Toro was “safe,” was generally unconvincing.

The press was critical of the county planning process.

The El Toro Reuse Planning Authority continuously blasted the airport as “unneeded, unwanted and unsafe.”

A California State University, Fullerton, public opinion survey found a significant increase in airport opposition between June and November of 2001.

ETRPA blocked county spending against Measure W. Volunteer Don Duca: organizing anti-airport signs


In order to permanently stop the airport, Measure W, the Orange County Central Park and Nature Preserve Initiative, needed to do two things: repeal the 1994 designation of El Toro for civilian aviation use and rezone the land for “park-compatible” uses.

Numerous polls showed the anti-airport purpose was favored by more than 60% of county voters. While many welcomed the park concept, in South County Measure W was viewed principally as an anti-airport initiative.

The measure’s political Achilles heel was that income-generating uses available to cover park costs were limited at the insistence of Irvine city leaders. Measure W’s opponents campaigned with the mantra, “No on a Great Tax for the Great Park.” The “great tax” scare had the most impact in North County.

The anti-initiative campaign was primed to outspend Measure W’s grassroots supporters by a wide margin and deluge voters with mailers in the crucial final weeks before the election. The city of Newport Beach gave $3.7 million to the Airport Working Group’s anti-park campaign. County supervisors voted to spend $5 million for the No on W effort.

Lawyers for the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority were convinced such government spending violated state law and, therefore, South County cities could not finance the “Yes on W” campaign.

To level the playing field, the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority sued the county to prevent its political use of taxpayer money.

In December 2001, two months before the vote, planning authority lawyers achieved one of the most decisive court victories in the numerous legal battles over El Toro. A judge issued an injunction against the county’s anti-initiative spending.

The pro-initiative campaign continued, thanks to its reliance on thousands of private contributors. The “No on W” campaign fizzled for lack of money.

El Toro was cut from regional planning.

In September 2002, the FAA granted the Southern California Association of Governments—the federal- and state-mandated transportation planning body for the region—$1.5 million to update its 2004 Regional Transportation Plan.

The Southern California Association of Governments’ previous regional plan relied on a 30 million annual passenger El Toro airport, and many of its leaders from Los Angeles wanted El Toro airport as a reliever for LAX.

At the insistence of Congressmen Chris Cox and Ken Calvert, the grant was conditioned to not “be used for any new planning efforts involving consideration of the reuse of the MCAS El Toro facility.”

Had the Southern California Association of Governments retained El Toro in its 2004 plan and legislative lobbying program, it could have provided a strong official impetus for creating an L.A. dominated regional authority with power to acquire control of El Toro from the Navy.

Airport opponents won a majority on the Board of Supervisors.

With the passage of Measure W, the federal property at El Toro was no longer locally designated for civilian aviation reuse. However, the Board Protest: anti-airport rally at Saddleback Churchof Supervisors continued as the federally designated Local Redevelopment Authority for the base. The majority on the board held power to lobby the government to overturn the will of the voters.

To successfully kill the airport, opponents needed control of the Board of Supervisors. They achieved that through the March 2002 election. Fullerton Councilman Chris Norby, helped by South County volunteers and money, won an unprecedented victory, unseating Cynthia Coad, chairwoman of the board.

The new anti-airport majority on the Board of Supervisors rescinded their predecessors’ airport plans. In March 2003, by a 3-2 vote, the supervisors approved a tax-sharing agreement required before Irvine could annex the property.

Irvine annexed El Toro.

The County of Orange had no plans for El Toro if it was not going to be an airport. Measure W limited the permissible sources of revenue to cover operating costs.

These included temporary rental of existing military buildings, agricultural, educational, cultural and recreational uses of the former base.

Some airport advocates favored locking the gates and leaving the land idle. Some hoped that it could be land banked, like Palmdale, to be resurrected in the future.

The Navy insisted that market value be created so that the property could be sold at a reasonable price. El Toro had long been in Irvine’s state-designated “sphere of influence.”

Consequently, Irvine Mayor Larry Agran and city staff devised a creative plan for annexing the base. It would accommodate parkland coexisting with revenue generating uses.

Irvine’s 2004 annexation of El Toro freed the property from the severe land use constraints added to the county General Plan by Measure W. Annexation allowed more pragmatic city zoning including housing and commercial uses.

The Navy’s subsequent sale of the property to Lennar Corp. for private development, and transfer of 1,096 acres to the city for the Great Park, recast El Toro’s non-aviation future into a more economically sustainable form.

The airport was dead.

Kranser is editor of the El Toro Info Site, www.eltoroairport.org.


Back to El Toro, Ahead to El Tunnel
By Rick Reiff - 12/5/2005
Orange County Business Journal Staff

History is written by the victors, as the saying goes.

So who better to write the accompanying story of the El Toro airport battle than Len Kranser, the retired Monarch Beach businessman whose Web site played a pivotal role in the airport’s demise?

It might seem odd that this paper and this editor—among the biggest backers of the airport—would turn to Kranser.

But as the Great Park succeeds El Toro in fits and starts, and as a new transportation controversy emerges over a proposed tunnel through the Santa Ana Mountains, it seems a good time to review the ground we’ve already covered. And Kranser’s an ideal guide.

Even during the height of the airport battle I admired Kranser’s energy, moxie and organization—the hired guns on “our side” were no match for this South County volunteer.

With the airport dead, the hatchet’s been buried. Kranser and I have exchanged notes on the airport fight from time to time. Kranser has authored and published a book on the battle, “Internet for Activists,” and he’s lectured to the executive MBA students in my media class at Chapman University.

He’s worth hearing. To borrow another saying (from George Santayana), those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Proponents of the tunnel (me included) would be wise to learn from the airport’s mistakes.

Laguna Niguel Councilwoman Cassie DeYoung, and the anti-El Toro airport veterans advising her, have made opposition to the tunnel the centerpiece of her populist campaign for county supervisor.

Her recent anti-tunnel mailer and her El Toro-style rhetoric have caused some would-be supporters of the tunnel to quiver.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean El Tunnel will become El Toro II.

Cars aren’t jets, a road’s not an airport. El Toro was seen in South County as bringing something bad. It could be argued that by easing traffic congestion, a tunnel will be taking away something bad.

Maybe it’s of no concern to Orange County residents that a tunnel would help workers who commute in from the Inland Empire. But the project still ought to appeal to OCers, especially those in South County, who would like a quicker route to desert resorts, outlet malls, other points east—maybe even to a future airport that would satisfy the air-travel demand left by ill-fated El Toro.

A tunnel would also address two infrastructure needs of South County: a new water line (it would be part of the project), and another evacuation route in case of a major emergency.

The tunnel has formidable opponents, but it hasn’t yet stirred grassroots emotions as El Toro did, and maybe it won’t. Many South County politicians and city councils have taken a wait-and-see approach.

Kranser says he’s undecided about the tunnel.

As we move ahead, let’s pause with Len for a look back.


Chronology of the war over El Toro Airport

from Internet for Activists by Leonard Kranser


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