Path to Airport Site Consensus Was Bumpy

IRVINE —  “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die,” veteran urban planner Al Bell said in greeting about 125 Orange County residents attending the final meeting of the Airport Site Coalition recently at UC Irvine.

“Everybody don’t want an airport, but everybody wants to fly,” he observed.

Coalition members had toiled for 20 months, examining more than 30 sites in hopes of forging a public consensus on at least one location for a new regional airport.

When it comes to jails, dumps, hazardous-waste treatment plants or shelters for the homeless, reaching consensus on a site is tough. Finding a home for a new airport is no different.

A consensus of sorts was reached. But critics will argue for months about whether the rules were fair, the technical data on individual sites was accurate and whether some of the choices reflected the political realities of congressional, U.S. Forest Service and Pentagon opposition.

When the coalition’s final report is filed in a few weeks, these sites are likely to be on it: Potrero Los Pinos, a plateau east of San Juan Capistrano in Cleveland National Forest; Cristianitos Canyon east of San Clemente; South Camp Pendleton in San Diego County; March Air Force Base in Riverside County, and Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino County.

Norton was a sort of sentimental choice for most of those attending the final assembly because it’s already available. The military is shutting it down. But the coalition’s final report may rank others higher.

Yet how the coalition even got this far is a bit of a mystery unless you watched it perform these past 20 months. After all, the Board of Supervisors declared six years ago that there is no “practical” site for a new airport within Orange County’s borders.

In this latest effort in a decades-long search for a new regional airport site, San Clemente residents sought to protect their decidedly non-urban environs and lobbied strongly against Cristianitos Canyon, a location preferred by some technical experts.

San Clemente’s apparently unsuccessful opposition was a major test of the coalition’s unorthodox attempt to build a consensus. The experimental strategy was aimed at preventing residents of any one city from dictating the outcome of the search, which has been authorized by the Board of Supervisors, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Southern California Assn. of Governments.

The key elements were:

* Anyone could attend coalition meetings, but the agenda was controlled by a “refinement” committee and urban planner Bell’s consulting firm, the Planning Center. Each meeting was aimed at resolving particular issues. Also, a point system emerged that gave most weight to sites that would adversely affect the fewest number of people.

* At meetings, participants were divided into about 20 small groups that met individually for about an hour, each trying to resolve specific technical issues on a given day’s agenda. One person from each table summarized the discussion orally for the larger assembly.

* After each meeting, the coalition staff and the refinement committee reviewed the results and prepared for the next round of evaluations, which would narrow further the list of sites.

More than a few folks were unhappy. Advocates of civilian or joint use of El Toro Marine Corps Air Station were upset when El Toro was eliminated at the coalition’s July meeting. Others stopped attending after North County sites such as Los Alamitos Armed Forces Reserve Center fell by the wayside.

San Clemente folks were relieved when Cristianitos Canyon was relegated to a backup list last July. Later, the coalition staff and the refinement committee members took it upon themselves to add it to the list of top sites. They also removed Norton from the top list, ostensibly to avoid duplicating airport studies that San Bernardino County officials recently initiated.

It was on Saturday, Nov. 18, that about 125 people gathered in the faculty dining room at the University Club to have a final say. Critics of both the Potrero Los Pinos and Cristianitos Canyon sites accused Bell and his staff of using flawed data. Some spoke of preserving such open space for future generations.

The caucus reports came in. One disgruntled group asked that Bell’s consulting firm not be retained for any follow-up effort.

Despite significant dissent, Cristianitos Canyon appeared to stay on the final list, as did Potrero Los Pinos. And Norton appeared to be headed back onto list.

Some San Clemente residents thought that they had been railroaded by the staff intervention to resurrect the Cristianitos Canyon site. Others were eager to proceed, including coalition member Doyle Selden of Laguna Hills.

“We’ve had 20 years of inaction, so now let’s close the loop and move on,” Seldon told fellow members.

The next step is for final report to be submitted to the Board of Supervisors and various agencies. They will be asked to act on a proposal to create a joint, public-private consortium to seek specific airport construction proposals for various sites, and all necessary governmental permits.

Regardless of the outcome, some say the coalition has made progress.

Said Barbara Lichman, director of the grass-roots Airport Working Group and an Airport Site Coalition refinement committee member, “If nothing else, this process came up with two brand-new Orange County sites that had never been studied before.”