Propaganda Piece

The pro-airport mailer was sent in two versions.

Only the North county residents were sent the following divisive message. “Today, North Orange County wages are declining relative to those in the southern part of the county.” The implication is that the south is greedy in fighting against what’s called “a job generator for all of Orange County”.

The mailer claims:

Claim: “FAA Backs El Toro”. That’s false. The Federal Aviation Administration in Washington has carefully avoided any endorsement of an airport until they see the plans. The flyer quotes a 1995 letter from one temporary local FAA employee, to a local pro-airport group, while ignoring other FAA documents that question the feasibility of El Toro.

Claim: El Toro a “10 billion dollar gift”. The figure is a guesstimate thrown out by a George Argyros friend, and former FAA official, who has no current standing in the matter. If the federal government gives the El Toro base to Orange County, it will be a great gift, whether the land is used for an airport or a university campus. However, Mr. Hinson’s value for the planned 2,000 acre airport comes to $5 million an acre, ten times what land is selling for at the Irvine Spectrum.

Claim: El Toro is “safe”. There is no documentation. While both national pilots unions have said that they will not take off on runway 7, down-wind and into the mountains, and the Marines have said that the runways are for high-performance military jets only, no one at the FAA has come forward to say this airport is safe.

Claim: The LA Times says that El Toro will generate “$4.9 billion in airport fees, taxes and related revenue”. Never mind that the pro-airport group fed this figure to the Times and is now quoting their own false statistics after getting them into the paper. For more on cargo and why this claim is a hoax, see http://www.eltoroairport.org/issues/cargo.html

Claim: El Toro is surrounded by 18,000 acres “where no homes can be built”. It’s a cruel lie. Ask any of the thousands of residents of Leisure World, Lake Forest, Irvine, Coto de Caza and other communities who live in this outdated so called “buffer zone” which the Marine Corp drew up in 1981.

Claim: El Toro can be built “At no risk to the taxpayers”. This additional piece of misinformation ignores:

The cost of soundproofing homes and schools (Los Angeles plans to spend 95 million on houses near LAX), plus the cost of condemning homes in high noise areas,

Lost property taxes on the 2,000 acres of airport which remain off the tax roll, lost property taxes on under developed noisy portions of the so called ”buffer zone”, and lost property value and taxes on homes impacted by the airport,

The major cost of upgrading roads highways and interchanges, local streets, arterials, lights and utilities near the airport.

A study funded by the State of Washington determined that an expansion of Seattle’s Sea-Tac Airport would require $3 billion of remediation costs, apart from runway construction.

Don’t be fooled by a constant stream of shameless misinformation from airport proponents who are claiming to supply you with "facts".