Riordan Joins Pro-Airport Side of Debate

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan waded into one of Orange County’s most divisive issues Monday when he enthusiastically endorsed plans to build an international airport at El Toro, accusing the project’s opponents of ignoring the needs of the poor.

“To stick your head in the sand and say, ‘We have ours,’ is morally wrong and stupid economically,” Riordan told an audience of political and business leaders who back the airport.

An international airport at the Marine Corps Air Station, which is scheduled to close in July, is essential to the economic vitality of Southern California, he said.

Orange County, he urged, must do its part to expand airport facilities, as Los Angeles International, Ontario International and other area airports are doing to meet what the Southern California Assn. of Governments expects will be a regional demand of nearly 160 million passengers a year by 2020.

“Everyone from the White House to the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] to SCAG says a regional solution will fail miserably unless El Toro is opened as an airport,” Riordan told about 500 people at the $250-per-plate fund-raiser at the Irvine Hyatt.

But those opposing the El Toro airport argue that, as mayor of Los Angeles, Riordan should mind his own business. A coalition of South County cities sent a letter to him Friday demanding that he remain neutral on El Toro.

“There are so many uncertainties about El Toro, and for him to stumble into the middle of it and say it’s a good idea, well, somebody’s not giving him good advice,” said Paul Eckles, executive director of the anti-airport El Toro Reuse Planning Authority.

As for Riordan’s contention that opposing the airport is immoral because of its effect on the poor, Eckles said: “I don’t think any of us is unsympathetic to the poor, but . . . that’s one of the more bizarre notions that I’ve ever heard.”

Eckles, a Los Angeles resident and former Inglewood city manager, said Riordan’s endorsement of El Toro is a bow to an internal debate within the Los Angeles City Council over whether the LAX expansion is necessary.

While the mayor has long been a vocal champion of airport expansion, his speech Monday marked a departure for him in several ways: It was the first time he had weighed in on the El Toro controversy, and it was his most aggressive attempt to link the region’s airports to the fight against poverty.

Riordan, who was invited to the luncheon Monday by businessman George Argyros, an ardent El Toro airport supporter, said that expanding the region’s airports is crucial for foreign trade, tourism and the local economy. An El Toro airport, he said, would increase the number of jobs and boost home values countywide.

About 20 million of LAX’s 60 million passengers a year come from Orange County, according to Los Angeles airport estimates. John Wayne Airport has no international flights and only minimal cargo capacity. It handles about 8 million passengers a year.

Riordan is pushing a plan that would boost LAX’s passenger traffic to 98 million a year at a cost of $8 billion to $12 billion. Residents around the airport oppose the proposal, saying Los Angeles already does enough to handle the region’s air-travel demand.

Orange County supervisors have supported the El Toro project, largely on 3-2 votes, but opponents have waged a long campaign to defeat it and are expected to push for a ballot measure prohibiting use of the site for an airport.

The mayor’s visit Monday was staged in part to raise money for the campaign against such a measure. It raised about $115,000 for Citizens for Jobs and the Economy, a group formed by Argyros in 1994 to push for the transformation of the 4,700-acre El Toro base into an international commercial airport complex.

Argyros said the money will go toward continuing efforts to remind Orange County residents why development of El Toro is essential for the county’s future growth. Though voters ratified the idea twice in countywide votes, more recent surveys show support for has dipped below 50%, with support soft in many North County cities.

A coalition of anti-airport forces in South County hopes to qualify an initiative for the ballot next year asking residents to choose between the El Toro airport and a nonaviation alternative called the Millennium Plan, anchored around residential, parks and commercial development.

“The south cities have spent $10 million of taxpayer money to fight [an El Toro airport],” Argyros said. “Instead of local politicians ranting and raving, we should be working together to plan the best user-friendly airport we can.”

Riordan said the need to meet air-travel demand for passengers--and more importantly, for cargo--is something that transcends geographical boundaries.

Failure to expand the West’s largest airport and build a new commercial airport at El Toro, Riordan said, would mean snarled air travel and freeways and a drag on the quality of life that would hurt everyone from business owners to the most vulnerable: the poor.

Time and again, Riordan urged members of the audience to consider the poor when debating the El Toro airport.

“Morally, we owe everybody the right to be part of the middle class, to be part of the American Dream,” Riordan said. “The ultimate goal is not increasing the capacity of our airports. The ultimate goal is creating quality jobs.”

Responding to questions, Riordan particularly chafed at criticism from some Orange County opponents of El Toro’s conversion. Dismissing them as “the usual suspects,” Riordan said the critics failed to understand the regional benefits of airport construction.

In an interview after his speech, Riordan was particularly stinging in his criticism of environmentalists who oppose El Toro or the LAX expansion.

“An environmentalist is a multimillionaire who just closed escrow on his beach house,” Riordan said. “Do you want the poor to starve while you sit at the beach?”