January 14, 2005
Honorable James Hahn, Mayor
City of Los Angeles
200 N. Spring Street, Rm 425
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Dear Mayor Hahn:
We understand that at your January 18 council meeting, there is an agenda item considering a resolution to lease the former MCAS/El Toro for the purposes of operating a commercial airport at that site.
On behalf of the nearly one million Orange County residents represented by the 10-city Joint Powers Authority called the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority (ETRPA) we urge you to reject this proposal. While El Toro operated successfully as a master jet base for the Marines, urban encroachment forced the closure of the base. More importantly, the base is surrounded on three sides by mountains, which make operating a commercial airport using the military runways, nearly impossible. It would have huge and unmitigatible impacts on hundreds of thousands of residents, well beyond the impacts created by the restricted military operations. In addition, reconfigurations of the runways have been studied and rejected during the county’s planning process because they would increase impacts to communities and would cost billions more than the estimated $3 billion to build an airport using the existing runways. The county has rescinded the environmental documents, and an airport use is no longer a consideration.
We are enclosing a video and brochure, which provide a brief explanation of some of the more serious operational problems with El Toro. Volumes of technical documentation generated by the FAA and Aviation consultants hired by the County of Orange during the planning process support every claim made
in this presentation. We urge you to review this before making a decision.
We would like to remind you that while Orange County is by far the smallest county in the SCAG region, we currently have the second largest passenger airport, which has recently expanded to accommodate up to 10.8 million annual passengers. Moreover, our county is nearly built-out and will only be able to grow by a few hundred thousand people. However, Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties are expected to grow by more than five million. It is fortuitous that these counties also have three closed military bases in the Inland Empire to accommodate aviation growth in Southern California, as well as the Palmdale airport in northern Los Angeles County.
Finally, a true "regional" approach to aviation planning should be based on projected demographic and economic growth, safety and operational feasibility of aviation facilities. For example, people living in north Orange County are much closer to Ontario than El Toro and people living in west Orange County are closer to Long Beach and LAX. Further, it is a well-known fact that, the already cash-strapped airlines will not service multiple airports within the same geographic market (John Wayne Airport is 7 miles from El Toro). More importantly, multiple airports within the same geographic area would exacerbate the already seriously crowded airspace and pose safety problems throughout the region.
We suggest that, as proposed in the SCAG Regional Aviation Plan, our regional efforts be focused on developing the airports in the Inland Empire and to ensure the funding and implementation of vital ground transportation linkages throughout the region.
We urge you to consider these facts carefully and join with us as we support the request of the political, civic and business leaders of the inland Empire to help secure the successful aviation plans they have initiated.
Sincerely,
Paul D. Eckles
Executive Director
cc: Kim Day, LAWA Executive Director
Los Angeles City Clerk
ETRPA Board of Directors
Terry E. Dixon, ETRPA General Counsel