January 18, 2005

BY FACSIMILE AND FEDERAL EXPRESS

Honorable James K. Hahn
Mayor
City of Los Angeles
City Hall
200 N. Spring Street, Room 425
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Re: City Proposal To Lease El Toro Marine Corps
Air Station For Commercial Airport Development

Dear Mayor Hahn:

I write on behalf of the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority (ETRPA) regarding your December 20, 2004, letter to Gordon England, the Secretary of the Navy, proposing that the City enter into a 99-year lease of the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in Orange County for use as a commercial airport, and the proposal pending before the City Council that would support such a City lease.

Under the provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the City would be undertaking a "project" if it were to enter into such a lease. Under CEQA, the City must analyze the environmental impacts of that project in an environmental impact report before it could validly enter into that lease. Importantly, that analysis must necessarily analyze the entire "project" the City would undertake pursuant to the lease, including all aspects of airport construction and operation. The City, of course, has never done so, and any such analysis would necessarily be both lengthy and costly.

ETRPA has been at the forefront of opposition to Orange County’s now-abandoned efforts to develop El Toro as a commercial airport. Its efforts included repeated successful litigation challenging the County’s wholly inadequate environmental analyses under CEQA.

Orange County’s voters have determined that El Toro will be used for non-aviation purposes and that determination must be respected. Please be assured that, if the City continues to pursue its misguided efforts to impose an airport on Orange County, ETRPA will litigate against the City for any violation of CEQA, and any other laws affecting the City’s suggested action.

Yours very truly,

 
RICHARD C. JACOBS