Safe and Healthy Communities

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Citizens for Safe and Healthy Communities

March 24, 1999

Contact: Leonard Kranser, CSHC Communications Director 949-499-5567 or Jeff Metzger, CSHC Chairman 949-454-1196

Airport Change Angers Initiative Committee

El Toro: Citizens for Safe and Healthy Communities reacted angrily to the latest change by the Board of Supervisors in plans for El Toro and John Wayne airports. Under a proposal from Supervisor Chuck Smith, the El Toro airport project would be expanded and John Wayne would shrink. A county spokeswoman, said it is possible for Plan B to "result in the closure of John Wayne because of market forces."

Leonard Kranser, spokesman for Citizens for Safe and Healthy Communities said, "Politics drives their entire planning process. The Board of Supervisors spends millions of dollars on bad schemes, and hundreds of thousands more on promoting them, before they are scrapped. The Board can't be relied upon to plan a dog house, let alone airports, jails or toxic dumps. That's why our initiative is needed."

The Safe and Healthy Communities initiative, when passed, will require that voters, give final approval to new or expanded airports, large jails in residential areas, or hazardous landfills. It will correct the planning process in Orange County by mandating that the environmental impacts, costs, and alternatives to major harmful projects must be made public - before they are approved. The initiative specifically requires that the people vote on any commercial airport plan for El Toro or Los Alamitos or any expansion of John Wayne airport.

This week's events marked another major shift in the El Toro project. In April 1998, county planners unveiled a "Gateway to the 21st Century", with a high density development including a "Global Town Center." The $4 million spent on plans for this project was abandoned, in August 1998, in favor of the so called "Green Plan". In April 1998 the Supervisors also voted, 3-2, for a "preferred option C", a two-airport plan with a people mover connecting John Wayne and El Toro and with all flights of 500 miles or less originating at John Wayne. An undetermined amount has been spent on this plan, which is now being dropped as unfeasible.