Council OKs $175,000 for El Toro Airport PR

To help its push for a proposed commercial airport at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, the City Council on Monday approved spending $175,000 on a pair of public relations firms.

The council voted 6 to 0 for the three-month contracts for the Los Angeles-based agencies, with Fleishman-Hillard getting $75,000 for its “media consulting team” and Hill & Knowlton receiving $100,000 to develop a “strategic community outreach program,” according to city staff.

City officials said they are concerned that, if no commercial airport is built at El Toro when the military base closes next year, there would be a push to expand John Wayne Airport after a federal limit on the number of passengers there expires in 2000. Though John Wayne is outside the city limits, planes taking off fly over Newport Beach.

Newport Beach officials said they want the public relations agencies to convey how an airport at El Toro would benefit the county’s economy, and “develop and manage the pro-airport message in all levels of print and electronic media.”

To counter the city’s publicity push, the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority sent letters to Newport Beach residents and businesses asking them to consider how an El Toro airport would affect the quality of life of “your neighbors across the county.”

ETRPA, an anti-airport coalition of seven South County cities, asked Newport Beach residents to “work with us, not against us,” and “think about a regional airport plan that does no harm to any resident of Orange County. Help us tone down the political rhetoric so that we can find common solutions.”