El Toro Panel Has Sincere Goal

From the beginning of the reuse planning process for the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, the airport idea has been the immovable object in the middle of the room. Two separate ballot initiatives and an exhaustive public debate over the merits of just this proposal have so dominated the discussion that there has been little substantive attention given by the public to alternatives.

The El Toro Reuse Planning Authority (ETRPA), a group of public officials from nearby South County cities, clearly represents a constituency firmly opposed to the airport. There are no secrets about where these people are coming from. But the question of whether such a group can be a catalyst for a fuller discussion than is likely to take place otherwise can be answered in the affirmative.

The group has asked for the county’s blessing, and more important, for the participation of interest groups actually favoring an airport, in the formulation of non-aviation uses. What’s in it for those already on record for the airport? The satisfaction of knowing that the county will have done its homework. ETRPA has cast this question of alternatives properly as being as much about thoroughness as preferences. Thoroughness is something the county should have been committed to all along, with or without the prodding of this group. It wasn’t.

Under the leadership of Lake Forest Councilman Richard T. Dixon, the authority has come forward to ask supervisors for a chance to sponsor an alternative plan. It’s a request that merits serious attention. The politics of the airport already have drawn out the supervisors. They committed themselves last December to an airport that will be something smaller than what proponents want and bigger than what the opponents would like.

It is unlikely that this board will make any substantive movement away from the airport idea. The commitment is reinforced by the recent decision of the supervisors to spend a considerable sum of money to do public relations work to sell an airport at El Toro. Nevertheless, there remains a host of questions about the viability and fiscal wisdom of a big airfield at El Toro. It is not enough to assert, as the county’s manager of the master development plan did recently, that alternatives were already explored.

A fuller treatment is needed. The county should not be left in the position of finding an airport unfeasible or too costly, with no backup plan. The South County coalition wisely has sought participation from such groups as the Orange County Business Council, which has been an airport supporter. As a gesture of good faith, the alternative planning should go forward, and it should include as broad a constituency as possible.