NEWS - September 2005
El Toro Info Site report, September 30, 2005
Professionals
comment on the Great Park design process
Irvine World News, September 29, 2005
"Great Park Corp.
board cuts design field to three"
OC Register, September 28, 2005
"Board hopes to
winnow concepts for the Great Park"
LA Daily News editorial, September 28, 2005
"A new day
for LAX "
"Mayor's pick for
new airport head should kill expansion plan quickly"
San Diego Union-Tribune, September 27, 2005
"2nd runway for
Lindbergh Field is ruled out"
El Toro Info Site report, September 26,
2005
The Coad and Indian
War
OC Register, September 24, 2005
"Great Park
expectations"
OC Register, September 23, 2005
"Stark differences
in design"
El Toro Info Site report, September 22, 2005
Newport Beach
residents push for new Measure F
Irvine World News, September 22, 2005
"Public invited to
hear Great Park designers"
Daily Pilot, September 21, 2005
”West Santa Ana
Heights continues to wait to be annexed by Costa Mesa or
Newport Beach.”
OC Register, September 20, 2005
"Bus service links
Disneyland, airports"
El Toro Info Site report, September
19, 2005
Great Park can’t be
started without a design
El Toro Info Site report, September 17, 2005
More on Great Park
designs
El Toro Info Site report, September 15, 2005
LAX in 4th place
for domestic passengers
LA Times, September 14, 2005
"1 Great Park for
Irvine, 7 Elaborate Possibilities"
El Toro Info Site report, September 13, 2005
John Wayne Posts
Record Statistics
OC Register, September 13, 2005
"Great
imaginations; Designers offer very different visions for the Great
Park"
El Toro Info Site report, September 12, 2005
Great Park Corp
advertises design choices
El Toro Info Site report, September 12,
2005
Regional airport
authority bills stall in legislature
El Toro Info Site report, September 11, 2005
911
Los Angeles Business Journal, September 9, 2005
posted September 10
"Crowds Ease at
LAX"
El Toro Info Site report, September 9, 2005
Public Has
Opportunity to View and Provide Comment on Orange County Great Park
Designs
Irvine World News, September 8, 2005
Local comments
El Toro Info Site report, September 7, 2005
Domestic passengers
still avoiding LAX
El Toro Info Site report, September 6, 2005
Great Park Corp
Board meets Thursday at 9:00 AM.
El Toro Info Site report, September 4, 2005
Four years ago today
Long Beach Press-Telegram, September 3, 2005
"Last 22 [LB]
airport slots allotted"
El Toro Info Site report, September 2, 2005
AB
556 on Inactive List
Irvine World News, September 1, 2005
"Applications
pour in for Great Park board seat"
Click
here for previous news stories
El Toro Info Site report, September
30, 2005
Professionals
comment on the Great Park design process
Recent conversations with Dick Sim and Jack Camp shed some light on how
professionals view the Great Park design process. Sim is the former
Irvine Company President who resigned from the GPC Board. Camp is
president of the Urban Design Camp in Laguna Beach, a member of the
Great Park Conservancy Advisory Committee and an urban designer for
numerous large scale projects over the past 30 years including the
Spectrum.
Jack Camp put together a team of 13 design and development
professionals who voluntarily submitted comments and questions for the
GPC Board to use in evaluating the seven design schemes for the park.
(See report below)
Both believed that the competitors should have been confronted with a
development budget and technical site constraints and then allowed to
be creative.
Camp said that while public input is good, it received a
disproportionate amount of attention and that more professional
involvement was needed.
Camp noted that no major park of this size had been funded entirely
with public money. More time should have been spent with professionals
who identify and market land use opportunities to private groups with
funding capabilities. He cited the example of a private organization
with interest in financing an Olympic-caliber equestrian center.
GPC staff is not blind to such opportunities and has considered soccer
and other sports organizations providing private support in return for
use of the playing facilities.
Sim has referred to the output as "pretty pictures" and a "waste of
money". Camp said the design firms did a great job with "extremely
conceptual ideas" but the next step must be to "get realistic about the
project's constraints".
Sim and Camp expressed that the design competition had a large
political purpose. Both described the process as being "rushed" for
that reason.
Irvine
World News, September 29, 2005
"Great Park Corp.
board cuts design field to three"
"The Great Park Corp. selected the top three finalists in the race for
a master designer of the Orange County Great Park Wednesday."
"Designers Ken Smith of New York, EMBT Arquitectes of Barcelona, Spain,
and Royston Hanamoto, Mill Valley, Calif. made the cut, despite a
design jury's report that deemed EMBT's entry confusing, and Royston's
- cluttered and not cohesive." (See report below)
"A poll of 3,380 online participants mirrored the board's choice of
finalists but the overall scoring system placed Richard Haag,
Hargreaves & Associates and Ken Smith as the top designers."
"On Oct. 10, the Great Park Corp. board will whittle the trio of
finalists down to two firms. The winner will get the contract to design
the public portions of the Great Park."
"How much the board will be influenced by the [design] jury report
remains to be seen. Although the jury gave high marks to the Ken Smith
and Olin Partnership plans, board members didn't like Olin's great
circle that defined the park."
"Members of the jury provided a window into the jury's thinking - and
the weight the board gave to the jury report and their own impressions
of the plans. . . Smith and Olin had finished high in the jury's
evaluation because the two firms' plans were judged to be both
functional and responsive to the needs of Orange County."
"In making its final decision, the board not only will have the design
jury report to consider but also a separate evaluation by a team led by
Jack Camp, president of the Urban Design Camp in Laguna Beach."
"That report said all seven designs were 'extremely conceptual' and
'offer little in the way of specifics as to how they see it (Orange
County) evolving over the coming 30 years or so.'"
"Moreover, the Camp report noted that
none
of the designs addressed existing trees, 'which are much more worth
preserving than the runways.'"
"Still to be resolved is how the final plan will mesh with Lennar
Corp.'s vision for the developed areas of the Great Park."
"Many questions remain. Among them: How much will the park cost to
create? How long will it take to finish? And perhaps most
significantly, will people embrace the park in the manner of a Central
Park in New York?"
Click
for the IWN report.
The Register similarly reports "Two firms that underwhelmed a design
jury fare better with the Great Park Board. . . Inclusion of EMBT
and Royston in the top tier went against the design jury's
recommendation."
Website Editor: The Ken Smith design
selected by the directors apparently was the only one receiving top
marks in the public poll, from the design jury and from the Urban
Design Camp team.
OC
Register, September 28, 2005
"Board hopes to
winnow concepts for the Great Park"
"A jury of design architects from across the country gave top marks to
plans submitted by Ken Smith of New York and Olin Partnership of
Philadelphia."
"
Smith's plan
features a canyon as a centerpiece; Olin's features a vast, open
meadow in the middle of the park,
accented by a marsh.
Smith's plan envisions a more active park; Olin's emphasizes
restoration of the land to something close to what it was before humans
arrived."
"Board members will review the jury report and a separate evaluation by
a team led by Jack Camp, president of the Urban Design Camp in Laguna
Beach. The board may decide on another plan or may choose a master
designer but direct that elements from other plans be included."
"The Great Park Corp. board meets at 12:30 p.m. today to discuss the
reports and the public response."
LA Daily
News editorial, September 28, 2005
"A new day
for LAX "
"Mayor's pick for
new airport head should kill expansion plan quickly"
"With the departure of Kim Day as head of Los Angeles World Airports,
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has the perfect opportunity to stop his
predecessor's cockamamie airport plan once and for all."
"Day, who will step down from the top airport job early next month, was
put in place by Mayor James Hahn in a desperate effort to salvage his
$11 billion expansion plan for Los Angeles International Airport in the
face of widespread opposition."
"With Day gone, Villaraigosa can fill the job with someone who will be
committed to killing off Hahn's plan and coming up with a more
reasonable and cost-efficient one for upgrading the airport. This
someone should also support
regionalization,
which is the only sensible way to accommodate additional air traffic in
the greater Los Angeles area."
"Even as he mounts his search for a successor, Villaraigosa needs to
renew his commitment to a sensible airport policy for all of Southern
California."
More
. . .
San
Diego Union-Tribune, September 27, 2005
"2nd runway for
Lindbergh Field is ruled out"
"Airport planners ruled out further consideration of a second, parallel
runway for Lindbergh Field yesterday, ending a long-shot option that
drew increasing ire from Point Loma and Loma Portal residents."
"In a related development, analysts said 'significant issues' involving
restricted [military] airspace had arisen with another location on a
list of possible future regional airport sites - the Imperial County
desert."
"The 4-0 vote by a San Diego County Regional Airport Authority
committee effectively ends an academic exercise that began in June,
when a consulting team came up with an idea for developing a runway
through the Midway District without using Marine Corps property."
"A report prepared for yesterday's meeting concluded that [it] would
require the relocation of 18,800 residents."
"The airport agency is attempting to find a way to meet a steady growth
in demand from the 16.3 million passengers handled at San Diego
International Airport last year to an expected 35 million sometime
between 2021 and 2030. The airport's practical capacity, with added
gates, is placed at about 24 million."
"Lindbergh Field remains on the list of future airport options . . . If
no alternative site is found suitable, the airport would make do with
its existing
single-runway property, perhaps adding more gates to meet as much
demand as possible."
"Five other locations involving military installations, including the
Marines' Miramar Air Station, Camp Pendleton and North Island Naval Air
Station, remain off the table pending congressional action on this
year's base closure and realignment process."
Click
for more . . .
El
Toro Info Site report, September 26,
2005
The Coad and Indian
War
Two hundred and fifty years ago, the French allied with American
Indians in an attempt to block English-speaking people from developing
the Appalachian regions of this continent. Recently, Tom and Cynthia
Coad allied with a small Native American group in a move to disrupt
development of the Great Park in Irvine.
The
former Supervisor and her husband made the rounds in Washington
with a leader of the Juanero Band of Mission Indians which has yet to
receive federal recognition. The Indians apparently seek to lay claim
to almost 1,000 acres of habitat preserve in the northeast corner of
the former base.
While there has been long standing discussion of a Native American
cultural center at El Toro, the group has resisted suggestions that it
be built in the Great Park's Museum District.
They
may contemplate a gambling casino on land that the federal
government has retained for a natural wild life corridor connecting the
mountains with parks near the ocean.
Construction on the nature preserve will disrupt more than wild life.
Native American groups are not required to abide by California
environmental regulations. A gambling casino could generate enough auto
traffic to require reworking of the environmental impact report for
non-Indian development on the remainder of the former base.
The Irvine City Council will take up the subject of gambling
establishments within the city at its meeting tomorrow.
A
proposed resolution commits the city to use all legal means to keep
out casinos.
OC
Register, September 24, 2005 -
updated
"Great Park
expectations"
"Four architectural designers completed a marathon of presentations
Friday on the Great Park, offering visions as varied as all outdoors."
"Ken Smith of New York would create a canyon in the middle of the park,
Hargreaves Associates suggested a canal walk, EMBT Arquitectes
presented an imaginative terrain and Ábalos & Herreros would
like to fill
a long runway
excavation with water for a rowing site."
"But many questions remain. Among them: How much will the park cost to
create? How long will it take to finish? . . . Only one firm included
cost estimates on building the public portions of the park."
"Three designers - Olin Partnerships, Richard Haag Associates and
Royston Hanamoto made their presentations Thursday." See report
below.
Click
for more including GPC directors' comments . . .
Then scroll down the Message Board thread for GPC Chairman
Larry Agran's rebutal to an earlier OC Register editorial. "Ultimately,
cost and financial considerations will determine what features the
Great Park will have and how long it will take to build. The city of
Irvine and the Great Park Corp. remain committed to building the park
without placing any additional burden on taxpayers."
OC
Register, September 23, 2005
"Stark differences
in design"
"The first three designers detailed their visions for the Great Park
Board on Thursday.
Highlights
and concerns raised on various aspects are detailed. The remaining
four will present their designs today."
"One plan traced the old runways with gardens and walkways, another
centered on a marsh, and the third put a 'Great Knoll' at the park's
center."
Website Editor: Former Great Park
Corp director and Irvine Company President Dick Sim said last night
that in his view, the design selection process was "a waste of money".
Sim said the designers should have been provided with much more
technical information - about matters such as traffic circulation,
where the concrete debris would be stored, the asbestos contamination
in old buildings that designers might be considering for reuse, and
flood water control - before they set to work making "pretty pictures."
That data is months away.
The alternate view expressed by GPC
CEO Wally Kreutzen was that this was a process for selecting a designer
with whom the Board could work rather than for settling on a
winning design. It was intended to give the designers freedom to
create innovative concepts.
Sim identified some excellent California designers who might meet that
criteria but were eliminated from the publicity-grabbing international
competition.
El
Toro Info Site report, September 22, 2005
Newport Beach
residents push for new Measure F
In 2000, Newport Beach and Costa Mesa were the only
cities in the County to not come out in favor of anti-airport Measure F.
It
passed with an overwhelming 67.3 percent of the countywide vote.
Measure F
required that two-thirds of voters would have to approve any
construction of El Toro Airport
or expansion of John
Wayne Airport.
While Measure F was eventually overturned in
court as a
result of a lawsuit brought by the Airport Working Group of Newport
Beach, it
remained law long enough to seriously derail the County’s El Toro
airport
planning.
Had the group not sued, the current expansion of
John
Wayne would have been subject to Measure F’s voter approval process.
We are struck by this ironic photo in today’s
Daily Pilot.
NPB residents are campaigning for passage of a city Measure F to
increase school
funding.
Irvine World News, September 22, 2005
"Public invited to
hear Great Park designers"
"The seven landscape architecture firms competing for the coveted job
of designing the Great Park will present their designs to the Great
Park board of directors today and tomorrow."
"Beginning at 8:30 this morning, each team will have one hour to
describe its plan before responding to board members' questions for an
hour."
Click
for the presentation schedule and the GPC ad that appeared in the
Register and IWN.
Website Editor: The Board will not be
selecting a design but will be choosing a design firm with whom they
can work as the project unfolds. The development of the park will be
planned and built in phases to conform to the availability of funds and
the freeing of land for use following environmental cleanup. The FAA
retains a piece of property for a navigation tower which will be
planned around until it is eventually removed.
Daily Pilot, September 21, 2005
”West Santa Ana
Heights continues to wait to be annexed by Costa Mesa or
Newport Beach.”
”Newport annexed East Santa Ana Heights in 2003 and is on the verge of
applying
to annex the western half of the neighborhood. Residents plan to meet
tonight
to ask Newport-Mesa officials why it’s taking so long.”
”West Santa Ana Heights and two adjacent unincorporated areas - the
Santa Ana
Country Club and an area south of Mesa Drive between Irvine and Santa
Ana
avenues - have been the subject of a tug-of-war for more than two
years.” The area
is close to the John Wayne airport takeoff corridor.
”Those areas have for years been part of Costa Mesa’s ‘sphere of
influence,’
which means officials expected them eventually to become part of the
city.”
Both cities [Costa Mesa and Newport Beach] early this year agreed to
form a ‘borders
committee’ to discuss the annexation, but so far it hasn’t met.”
”For
Newport officials, the annexation is tied up with a bundle of other
issues
they’re negotiating with the county, including more control over John
Wayne
Airport, Newport Beach Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff said.”
Newport Beach
“is
in talks with the county about taking over management of the [Santa Ana
Heights
Redevelopment] fund.”
Click for the complete Pilot article.
OC Register, September 20, 2005
"Bus service links
Disneyland, airports"
"Coach USA/Gray Line of Anaheim launched The Disneyland Resort Express,
a bus service that provides transportation between Los Angeles
International Airport or John Wayne Airport and the Disneyland Resort
in Anaheim."
"The one-way fee for LAX is $19 for adults and $16 children. For John
Wayne Airport, the fee is $14 for adults and $12 for children."
Website Editor: There is no bus
service from Disneyland to Ontario Airport. Super Shuttle rates are $30
to LAX, $20 to John Wayne and $50 to Ontario. Future use of Inland
Empire airports - to take the passenger load from Los Angeles and
Orange County - will depend on the development of reasonable ground
transportation.
El
Toro Info Site report, September
19, 2005
Great Park
can’t be started
without a design
The OC Register’s Steven Greenhut editorialized
yesterday that the “Great Park
vision is all vision, little reality.” Greenhut writes that
in “an interview
earlier in the year, following his resignation from the [Great Park
Corp]
board, Mr. Sim . . . couldn’t
understand the rush to create designs before the board dealt with
contamination
and other issues that ultimately will determine what can be built
where.”
In our view, the “rush” is justified because
without an
overall design, the project can’t be started. A design concept needs to
be
selected to guide the shaping of the terrain.
Where does one start without a plan? Where does the first
construction road enter the property? What existing infrastructure
should be bulldozed
and what left standing? Where does the rubble of the runways get
deposited? The
general plan provides the answers.
The need to deal with contamination should not stop the
design process. The Navy is committed to cleaning the contamination.
While
some construction may be delayed for this to occur, designing does not
need to wait.
Greenhut raises a second and more convincing criticism of the
much publicized design competition: “When architects design houses . .
. They
need to consider the homeowner’s budget. They need to consider traffic
patterns
in the neighborhood.” Presumably, Lennar has taken these factors
into consideration with the largely unpublicized selection
of the designer for its part of the Heritage Fields development.
Reportedly,
this realistic approach was not taken with the park designers.
The Great Park
Corp has begun work as though the Great Park needs to be marketed to
the public with what Sim called "pretty pictures". Anyone who
has followed the El Toro debate, and
observed
the
County’s extravagant spending on its pro-airport PR campaign, knows
that spending
money does not necessarily equate to winning either public
participation or
support.
El
Toro Info Site report, September 17,
2005
More on Great Park
designs
The presentations of the seven design competitors can be viewed online
at the Great Park Corp website. Click on
http://www.ocgp.org/maps_docs/designer_presentations.asp
A colorful new 12-page Fall 2005 issue of the GPC's
Benchmark
report provides a summary of the designs and commentary about the
project.
We heard recently that demolition of the runway possibly may be delayed
pending selection of a design since some of the suggested plans
incorporate sections of the huge concrete strips.
El Toro
Info Site report, September 15, 2005
LAX in 4th place
for domestic passengers
Department
of Transportation data released today, for the
first 6 months of 2005, puts Los Angeles
airport
in 4th place in the number of domestic passengers enplaned, behind the Atlanta, Chicago,
and Dallas-Fort Worth airports.
Las Vegas’ McCarran Airport climbed to 5th
place in
2005.
Domestic travel accounts for 72 percent of LAX
traffic
this year. Including international passengers makes LAX the nation’s
third
busiest airport.
Enplanements
are the number of passengers boarding flights.
Airport statistics – and airport passenger caps such as those at John Wayne Airport
- are usually
stated for Total Passengers, the sum of Enplanements and Deplanements.
Total
passenger counts are about twice the enplaned number.
LA Times, September 14, 2005
"1 Great Park for
Irvine, 7 Elaborate Possibilities"
"The city of Irvine has embarked on a massive planning effort for the
Orange County Great Park, a roughly 1,000-acre regional preserve with
museums and sports fields to be built in the center of the former El
Toro Marine base."
"The proposals, from seven internationally known design firms, are as
grand as the city's planners hope the park will be."
"The public can see the designs at Irvine City Hall through Sept. 21,
then attend public presentations Sept. 22 and 23. People will also be
able to vote for their favorite park features on the Internet."
"The Great Park planning board gave the designers $50,000 each - and a
blank slate - to develop their proposals. They were given free rein to
think creatively, without worrying about cost, traffic, water or
lingering contamination from 50 years of military use, said Glen
Worthington, Irvine's former principal planner, who now works for the
Great Park Corp."
"'I don't know that we told them they should be limited,' Worthington
said of the designers. "'We didn't want them to worry about 'What's the
budget?' "
"Despite the varied proposals, marketing consultant Linda Congleton,
one member of the group critiquing them, fretted that few of the
designs offered activities, landscaping or attractions that were truly
different from Southern California's other recreational draws."
"They worried that the board was moving too fast to pick a designer
without knowing key elements of the future park, including how much it
would cost and its annual operating budget."
"The group critiqued each design with a 'reality factor.' For example,
most
featured water that might have to be lined to protect ground water.
Many directed cars into the park off busy Bake Parkway, yet only a few
indicated parking areas."
Click
for the entire article with highlights of the various proposals.
El
Toro Info Site report, September 13,
2005 - updated
John Wayne Posts
Record Statistics
Airline passenger traffic at John Wayne Airport increased in August
2005 as compared to August 2004. In August 2005, the passenger
traffic count was 899,923, an increase of 3.2% when compared to the
August 2004 passenger traffic count of 872,271.
"We served more passengers in August than in any one month in the
Airport's history," said Airport Director Alan Murphy.
Commercial
Carrier flight operations decreased 3.4%, while Commuter Carrier
(air taxi) operations increased 8.5% for the month when compared to the
same levels recorded in August 2004. Both types of flights are down for
the year to date compared to 2004.
OC
Register, September 13, 2005 - updated
"Great
imaginations; Designers offer very different visions for the Great
Park"
"Some of the seven Great Park designs are detailed down to the color of
bicycles that visitors could rent; others offer a broad conceptual
mosaic but are light on details."
"Hamid Shirvani, chair of the design jury and president and professor
of architecture at California State University Stanislaus [said],
'They're
avante garde, abstract, modernist, ecological - seven powerful
schemes.'"
"One design calls for a rowing channel along the course of the main
runway, another plan creates a central, iconic pyramid, another plan
leaves the control tower intact as a remembrance of the half-century
military presence on the site where beans once grew and American
Indians roamed."
Click
for the entire article.
The designs can be seen online at
the Great Park website.
Viewers must answer the poll questions on each design in the order
presented and can not go back to compare one with another. A
cookie will be set to interfere with viewers taking a second look at
the submissions.
Click
here to post comments on the poll.
El Toro
Info Site report, September 12, 2005
Great Park Corp
advertises design choices
The Great Park Corp placed a full page ad in today's Orange County
Register, inviting readers to log on to the GPC website and participate
in a Great Park Master Designer Online Poll.
The ad headlines
"Seven World Renown
Designers . . . One Orange County Great Park. Make Your Mark on Orange
County History." It also will be run in the Irvine World News.
Unfortunately, last minute changes kept the online survey offline until
later in the morning. If you have not done so,
check it out now.
The Great Park
Corp budgeted $130,000 for the Internet survey and a mail back
survey assessing the seven design options as parts of a million dollar
build up to selecting a master designer and putting the firm to work.
Please complete the Irvine poll. Viewers are also invited to post less
structured opinions on the designs, and on the poll itself,
by
clicking here.
El
Toro Info Site report, September
12, 2005
Regional airport
authority bills stall in legislature
California
lawmakers worked well into the night Thursday and took final action on
hundreds
of bills that the governor has until Oct. 9 to sign or veto. There were no
reports that two
bills intended to create Southern California
regional
airport authorities - AB 1197 or
SB 32 -
were enacted during the end of session
crush.
Any regional authority authorized during the
next, 2006,
session of the Legislature can not take effect before January 1, 2007.
As
reported here in July, the fight over El Toro
will peter out with no formal cease fire declaration.
Victory is in hand but it will be hard to know exactly when it is
finally,
absolutely, irrevocably over.
An airport is
technically possible at El Toro
for several more years until there is major construction
on the former base. However, the end of this legislative session is
seen by
many as the final step in the political demise of El
Toro
airport. The prospects for resurrecting the project become less
feasible as
each such milestone is passed.
El Toro
Info Site report, September 11, 2005
911
Four years ago today, a vicious terrorist attack changed many aspects
of how we live and do business. Probably no industry saw more dramatic
change than commercial aviation. The impact on Southern California
airports was particularly complex.
On the
eve of September 11, 2001, Measure F still was the law in Orange
County pending final appeals. Airport planning was restricted by the
measure to completion of an El Toro - John Wayne Airport Environmental
Impact Report which then would have required voter approval.
The pro-airport OC Board of Supervisors hoped to certify El Toro
Airport EIR 573 quickly before the FAA released its regional air
traffic analysis. The long-delayed FAA report was expected to - and
eventually did - contain
bad
news for El Toro plans.
Even before 911,
the aviation
industry opposed operating two Orange County airports. Then the
attack happened, causing a sharp and persistent contraction in the
number of passengers wanting to fly. It crippled much of the industry.
Had El Toro been built, the unneeded airport would have severely
burdened airlines with infrastructure costs. El Toro could have been a
financial disaster for the struggling major carriers.
Los
Angeles Business Journal, September 9, 2005
posted September 10
"Crowds Ease at
LAX"
"
Though domestic travel
to Los Angeles International Airport was down this summer, it
doesn't mean fewer visitors came to L.A. - it just means fewer visitors
flew into LAX."
"Domestic travel to LAX fell 3.4 percent in June and 3.1 percent in
July compared with the like periods last year, according to Los Angeles
World Airports."
"One reason for the drop at LAX was that fewer flights were coming in.
'Domestic flights to LAX have been reduced due to the increase in fuel
prices,' said LAWA spokeswoman Nancy Castles. 'That has helped the
airlines ensure there are more people per plane, but it's reduced the
number of seats available.'"
"Meanwhile, hotel occupancy in Los Angeles County reached 81.5 percent
in July, up from 78.5 percent for the like period a year earlier,
according to Smith Travel Research. June occupancy was also up from a
year earlier."
"'I can't tell if they're flying to another airport and driving in, but
I do know that
a
higher percentage of visitors are traveling by car,' said David
Sheatsley, vice president of research for L.A. Inc., the Convention and
Visitor's Bureau."
El
Toro Info Site report, September 9, 2005
Public Has
Opportunity to View and Provide Comment on Orange County
Great Park
Designs
[Excerpts
from a Great
Park Corp media release] Beginning
September 12, 2005,
members of the public will have several opportunities to see
and comment on
the proposed designs for the Orange County
Great Park.
The designs were
created by seven of the world’s leading landscape architecture firms as
they
compete to become the “Master Designer” of the Great Park.
An initial jury of leading architects, designers
and
academics picked seven finalists in the international competition. The Great Park
board of directors approved the list in May. They submitted their
designs for
the Great
Park on September
1, 2005.
A second jury design panel was assembled to
evaluate the
designs of the seven finalists.
The public can review the designs beginning
September 12 on
the Internet at www.ocgp.org.
In addition
to viewing the designs, an online poll to determine popular preferences
and to
answer questions will be conducted from September 12 through September
25.
Beth Krom, Mayor, City of Irvine,
said “For those unable to visit the Civic Center,
the internet
provides an accessible way review the designs and comment at any time,
day or
night.”
Irvine
World News,
September 8, 2005
Local
comments
This week's Irvine World News includes articles about the Cal State
Fullerton Campus at the former El Toro base, progress on cleaning the
underground plume of contaminated water, and opinions regarding the
community's response to Hurricane Katrina.
Click
here.
El Toro Info Site report,
September 7, 2005 - updated
Domestic passengers
still avoiding LAX
July data shows foreign travel from LAX has rebounded and inched ahead
of July 2000's pre-SARS and pre-911 level.
However, large numbers of domestic
travelers are still avoiding LAX. Almost a half-million fewer
domestic passengers used LAX this July than in the same month in 2000.
They flocked to other airports - principally Long Beach and John Wayne.
John Wayne and Bob Hope Airports each had their busiest month ever.
Long Beach had the second biggest month in its history, narrowly
missing setting a record. Ontario experienced its busiest July and its
second highest passenger count, second only to August 2001.
Today's LA Daily News reports that Los Angeles City Councilman "Dennis
Zine said the airport [LAX] needs a great deal of work. 'Right now, it
is not very customer-friendly,' Zine said. 'It takes too long to find
parking. It takes too long to get through security and it takes too
long to get to your gate.'"
El Toro Info Site
report, September 6, 2005
Great Park Corp
Board meets Thursday at 9:00 AM.
Click
for the agenda which includes a presentation by Great Park
Conservancy Director John Sullivan on his Conservancy-funded fact
finding tour of a
large selection of domestic and foreign parks.
The GPC Board will discuss a possible response to Hurricane Katrina.
El Toro Info Site report,
September 4, 2005
Four years ago today
On September 4, 2001, the Board of Supervisors held a tumultuous
meeting as the fight over El Toro Airport neared its climax. A reported
111 people - many bussed in from Inglewood - spoke at the BOS meeting
before supervisors voted 3-2 to cut the airport project from its once
planned 38 million annual passengers to 18 million in a doomed struggle
to placate public opposition. Click
here to view our archived stories.
The following day, volunteers from the Committee for Safe and Healthy
Communities turned in petitions to the Registrar of Voters to place
what became Measure W on the March 2002 ballot.
Long Beach
Press-Telegram, September 3, 2005
"Last 22 [LB]
airport slots allotted"
"The city has allocated its remaining commuter flight slots at Long
Beach Airport to a startup headed by a former JetBlue Airways executive
and to Delta Air Lines, officials
said Friday."
"Under the city's noise ordinance, the airport has 25 commuter slots
allotted, with longtime tenant America West Airlines operating the
remaining three. There are 41 daily commercial flight slots, and all
are spoken for."
"There still are no indications of where the new commuter service will
take passengers but there has been speculation. Cities that might
fit the profile: Las Vegas, Sacramento, San Jose, Portland, Reno/Lake
Tahoe, San Francisco, Salt Lake City and Seattle."
Website Editor: Data in the LAX
Master Plan shows that one-third of all origin and destination
passengers using the SCAG region's six airports are going to other
airports within a 400 mile radius. Oakland was the most visited with
Las Vegas in second place. Because commuter planes carry fewer people
than those going longer distances, they account for more than one-third
of the takeoffs and landings.
The new service at LGB is likely to draw passengers away from LAX and
John Wayne.
El Toro Info Site report,
September 2, 2005
AB
556 on Inactive List
Assembly
Bill 556, dealing with airport noise impacts, was
amended three times from its original form and passed in the State
Assembly. In the Senate it was amended twice more and then placed on
the Inactive List.
AB 556 originally sought to enact into law various
restrictions, penalties, and public hearing requirements that would
affect all
airports with 65 CNEL impact areas including John Wayne. The amendments
narrowed application of
the restrictions to only LAX. Even after the changes, airport operators
– most recently
Bob Hope Airport Authority – objected to the bill’s precedents
regarding
avigation easements.
An Inactive List bill
requires two days notice before it can be placed back on the 'active
file'(agenda) for action by the legislative body. AB556 can still
be heard
in this legislative session as long as the author requests its
'activation'
w/in two days of the last day of the Senate's 2005 session this month.
Irvine
World News, September 1, 2005
"Applications
pour in for Great Park board seat"
Runway party
delayed
"Nearly two dozen people submitted applications for the vacant seat on
the Great Park Corp. board of directors."
"The current board, comprised of all five City Council members and
three members appointed at large, is expected to select its ninth
member by October or November. The deadline to submit applications was
Wednesday."
Click
for the entire list.
A second piece in the IWN provides this regarding a runway party:
"Lennar has been fielding inquiries about some sort of event open to
the public to perhaps mark the start of work breaking up the runways.
However, the Monday ceremony may have depleted the company's party
budget. Another party 'would have to be collaborative,' said Bob
Santos, Lennar's executive vice president. Lennar is considering such
an event for spring."
Website Editor: The Great Park
Corp budgeted $739,000 for Forde Mollrich's "Public Outreach"
contract. It includes a $50,000 line item for a "Groundbreaking event".
What better form of "public outreach" is there?
After speaking with Bob Santos and
others at Lennar and the Great Park Corp and exchanging numerous emails
with several insiders, I sense that something is at play other than
budgetary restrictions. Initially, everyone said that a public event
was contemplated for this fall. There may be problems connected with
the runway demolition contract. We also are picking up whiffs of legal
and political hesitancy. We will keep after this.
Click
here for previous news stories