United Voice Needed on El Toro’s Future : * If Pentagon Cooperates, So Should Communities

There may be some issues on which Orange County speaks with a unified voice. Clearly, the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station is not one of them, and that division is hurting the county’s best interests in planning for the future.

Recently, the Irvine City Council bailed out of the county’s El Toro advisory council, opting instead to form a hoped-for joint-powers authority that would put Irvine and South County communities in charge of the base. And Laguna Hills voted to support having the county as the lead agency in the planning for the base, but recommended that the advisory panel be limited to only 11 seats, with a majority set for Laguna Hills, Irvine, Laguna Niguel, Lake Forest, Newport Beach and Leisure World.

That’s local control, all right. But the moves came just as the Board of Supervisors was planning last week to discuss the advisory panel. Under pressure, the board now has postponed the establishment of a commission to oversee planning for the 4,700-acre site.

The county has had other ideas of its own. It has been hoping to hold the area effort together in an effort to provide a united front, even as the Defense Department gave the message that Washington was ready to do its part. Fair enough. But it was clear that, through the fault of nobody in county government, the county did not have its act together.

That’s too bad. And the county was sufficiently worried that county staff earlier threatened to oust uncooperative cities from the county effort at planning. The board had hoped to make a united front, a reasonable expectation.

But in fact, there is the county effort, the Irvine effort, and the persistent city of Newport Beach, which along with Anaheim and other central Orange County cities has lobbied tirelessly for a regional commercial airport. The south county cities don’t want that.

But at least Newport Beach has agreed to work with the county for now. That alliance may or may not hold up depending on how interested the county becomes in the airport idea. Irvine understandably may think the airport idea is being railroaded, so it wants its own handle on this large piece of real estate.

And there are other things besides an airport the county should be considering. The frustration exhibited by the law enforcement community over the county’s continuing jail crisis is a reminder. With the routine citing and releasing of inmates due to jail overcrowding, it makes sense to at least consider some kind of jail use for the closed air bases.

The county, according to sheriff’s officials, routinely houses a total of 4,600 prisoners at its five jail facilities that were built to accommodate about 3,300. And the sheriff is under a federal court order to find space for inmates within 24 hours of jail check-in. According to Municipal Judge Ronald Krebe, misdemeanor offenders are in danger of being pushed entirely out of the county jail system at the present time.

Some kind of jail use of closed bases would be controversial and expensive. But those who dismiss the idea summarily should recognize that the less serious offenders who might do time at those new sites likely will be on the streets if the county fails to do something to ease its overcrowding problem.

So all of this argues for a full discussion on a countywide basis and for a more united front. Supervisor Gaddi Vasquez, for one, was heartened by the Pentagon’s commitment to help affected communities, especially in committing the Defense Department to taking a larger role in environmental cleanup. If Washington is in a cooperative mood, so should Orange County be.