“El Toro Foes Get Savvy”
“Proponents admit that their opposition has become
a formidable force.”
Then: A dining room table serves as central command. Public relations means passing the hat to raise enough money to photocopy fliers. People keep in touch through phone trees.
Now: Meetings convene around a polished conference table at city hall. An $875,000 public-relations campaign funds mass mailings, videos and CDs promoting the cause. A Web page, complete with e-mail and hyperlinks to other sites, provides instantaneous communications to thousands.
The anti-El Toro airport campaign may have started out as a small grass-roots movement of political neophytes, but no more.
As deadlines loom at year's end for final decisions on El Toro's future, airport supporters find themselves faced with an increasingly sophisticated and energized opposition.
Anti-airport cities anted up $4.8 million toward the fight this year — $2 million from Irvine alone. With a campaign organization ready to raise millions more, the effort to stop an airport at the closing El Toro Marine Corps Air Station has come of age.
The money and the highly paid attorneys and consultants it has bought have allowed airport opponents to open their campaign on new fronts:
State agencies: Opponents took their battle to the state Lands Commission last month. Richard Jacobs, attorney for the seven south-county cities that oppose an airport, argued that the Navy could not transfer federal legal jurisdiction over El Toro to the state until there is a certified environmental impact report for base reuse. The anti-airport cities and Taxpayers for Responsible Planning, a citizens group fighting the project, have tied up the environmental report in court.
Deputy County Counsel Jack W. Golden, in a 19-page response sent to the commission Friday, argues that an environmental review is not required. If the airport opponents' challenge is successful it could delay — and possibly derail — the county's interim air-cargo plans.
State legislation: Assemblywoman Pat Bates, R-Laguna Niguel, a longtime airport opponent, introduced legislation last week that would require local voters to approve the issuance of revenue bonds for airport construction.
Board of Supervisors Chairman Chuck Smith blasted the move as a thinly veiled effort to stop an airport. He said it would delay the project and might force the county to use money from the general fund instead of airport user fees. That, he added, would drive up airport costs.
Federal lobbying: A delegation of anti-airport city officials heads to Washington, D.C., at the end of the month to try to head off the county's interim air-cargo and commercial-flight demonstration plans. Jacobs sent a letter last month warning the Navy that it cannot legally permit the county to use the base for the two projects until a full-blown — and time-consuming — environmental analysis is completed.
Jacobs' letter and the planned face-to-face visit come as county pressure increases to get interim air cargo and flight demonstration approved. The Marines endorsed the county's plans last month and urged the Navy secretary to approve both projects.
The opposition's aggressive new stance marks a turning point in the battle over El Toro after six years of failures.
Opponents in 1994 failed to stop passage of Measure A, which designated
the Marine base as a commercial airport, and the courts rejected their
challenge to its legality. In 1996, Measure S, their initiative to repeal
the airport plan, lost by a landslide.
Even their victory tying up the county's environmental impact report in court proved hollow. The judge refused to stop county airport planning.
Bill Kogerman, a leader of Taxpayers for Responsible Planning, said some serious soul-searching took place. Members realized they were facing a financially powerful, politically savvy opponent. They hired expert political and legal consultants and devised a plan.
"We're bigger. We're smarter and we're more worldly now," Kogerman says.
They also decided to play to their strengths.
"We're not a financial powerhouse. We're not a political powerhouse, but we're a people powerhouse," Kogerman says.
The change is not lost on airport supporters.
Clarence Turner, the former mayor of Newport Beach who battled with the county over the expansion of John Wayne Airport, said those who want an El Toro airport should take heed.
"I keep telling people, 'You're up against a very formidable force,' " he says. "It's not like it was in Measure A or Measure S."
That series of setbacks was probably the best thing that could have happened to the opposition, says Dave Ellis, a political consultant for airport supporters.
"When they lost Measure A and they lost Measure S and the EIR got certified, it was sort of a call to arms," Ellis says. "They got sophisticated."
While discussing a new initiative last summer, airport opponents came to the conclusion they needed to do more.
"It was our belief that a multifaceted, diverse strategy is much more likely to be successful than a strategy dependent on one or two points of attack," said Irvine Councilman Larry Agran, who sits on the seven-city south Orange County group that is fighting the airport.
The idea was to weave a web of litigation, legislation, ballot measures and challenges to the government process that at the very least would delay the airport and perhaps even kill it.
With public opinion surveys showing growing disenchantment with the airport, opponents believe it's only a matter of time before they prevail.
"We only have to find one way to win," Agran says. "The county has to win every battle they are in."
The opposition has a coordinated plan: The cities, with their deep taxpayer pockets, will mount the major legal and governmental challenges, promote their nonaviation Millennium Plan and finance the research for the new ballot measure.
Citizens groups will handle the "Safe and Healthy Communities" initiative campaign.
The cities unveiled the initiative last month. It would require two-thirds of county voters to approve an airport, large jail or toxic dump before the Board of Supervisors could proceed. Airport opponents hope that by including hot-button issues such as jails and toxic dumps, the measure will appeal to voters who may not care about the airport.
Next week, a coalition of residents and homeowners associations that have been fighting the county plan will begin collecting the 71,206 valid signatures needed to qualify the measure for the March 7, 2000, ballot.
Time is of the essence. Pro-airport forces are beginning to stir and reportedly are ready to ante up $5 million to fight the new initiative.
Newport Beach budgeted $850,000 for 1998-99 to push the El Toro airport. The city is leading an effort to bring other cities and groups together into their own, well-funded alliance as a counterpoint to the south-county cities' opposition. The alliance is expected to raise $1.5 million for its efforts this year.
And the county process moves on. The base closes July 3. The county's new airport environmental impact report and El Toro reuse plan is due out in late summer, with final action scheduled by the end of the year. The Navy secretary will use that plan as the basis for a final decision next year on transfer of the base for civilian use.
Both sides are geared up for a final, yearlong push.
"It's not a guerrilla war anymore," Ellis says.