Most Voters Oppose Airport at El Toro Base

Opposition to a new airport at El Toro continues to grow in Orange County, boosting the chances for approval of an anti-airport measure by voters next month, according to a Los Angeles Times-commissioned poll.

The election March 5 marks the fourth time county voters will be asked to decide the airport issue. Measure W would rescind the airport’s approval by voters in 1994 and rezone the 4,700-acre base to public parkland and other development.

The park measure is favored by 55% of likely voters, the poll conducted for The Times by Baldassare Associates shows. Support jumped to 58% among likely voters when they were told the measure could kill the airport.

Overall, 60% of Orange County voters--the highest percentage since 1994--are opposed to the county’s plan to turn the base into Southern California’s second-largest airfield.

The telephone poll of 800 registered voters, including 582 likely voters, was taken from Feb. 14 to 18. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Many think the El Toro airport fight has been led by South County, a dozen cities closest to the former Marine base.

But the poll found that opposition is growing countywide and in every demographic group. For the purposes of the poll, Newport Beach--which strongly backs an El Toro airport--was included in North County results.

Most of the respondents said they don’t believe a new airport is needed, despite regional transportation planners’ insistence that the county must share in handling as many as 30 million of the 150 million passengers expected to travel by air in Southern California by 2020.

“That argument is not very persuasive to Orange County voters,” said Cheryl Katz, who conducts polling for The Times. “The airport is really battling the widespread perception that it is not needed.”

Differing Views on Economic Impact

Pam Vliss of San Clemente, who was interviewed for the poll, is among those ready to stop the airport for good.

The director of global sales for a high-tech manufacturing company, Vliss said she uses John Wayne and Los Angeles International airports and San Diego’s Lindbergh Field and sees no need to add a “polluting, lifestyle-altering” airfield in south Orange County.

“I think the character of South County would dramatically change,” she said. “I don’t think the economy would suffer without an airport--I see just the opposite, the economy of South County actually withering with an airport. It would reduce property values, bring in [undesirable] types of businesses and have a domino effect quite to the contrary.”

But Vliss isn’t quite ready to embrace an urban park at the base. She said her vote for Measure W is strictly against the airport.

“A park would be lovely, but I’m just not quite sure if the current plans are the best thought-out use for the land,” she said.

Another voter surveyed, retired pollution control worker Mark Schafer of Los Alamitos, also doesn’t think a park is the best use for El Toro.

He believes Orange County will need more airport space. John Wayne Airport, with one runway on 500 acres, can’t be expanded enough to make a difference, he said.

Schafer said he’s seen more anti-park mail in the last week, an indication of how important North County voters are to the No on Measure W Campaign. North County makes up 70% of the county’s registered voters, meaning that a higher turnout in the north could offset greater support in the south.

“This park will probably create a tremendous tax and it’ll never happen,” Schafer said. “[The base] will lie fallow out there. The idea of a park is wonderful but ... people aren’t going to pay for it. We need an airport there.”

Southern California transportation planners also argue that El Toro is needed to help handle the millions of air travelers that Orange County exports every year to other airports.

Airport Proposal Has Become Regional Issue

County residents have made El Toro a regional issue--not just a local one--by flocking to those airports, said Bruce Nestande, president of Citizens for Jobs and the Economy, formed in 1994 to promote an El Toro airport.

About 6 million passengers leaving from or traveling to Orange County booked flights at Los Angeles and Ontario last year, according to a passenger survey by Los Angeles World Airports.

About 7 million passengers used John Wayne Airport last year. The airport is about one-fifth the size of El Toro’s proposed airfield and has restrictions on the number of flights and passengers through 2005. Newport Beach, the city most affected by John Wayne, has long fought expansion plans there and wants the restrictions on operations to be extended.

“If [local foes] say they should be able to kill the airport, then the people in Los Angeles and Riverside should be able to not allow Orange County residents to fly out of their airports,” or should be able to impose a surcharge on Orange County passengers and cargo for using their airports, Nestande said.

The airport has been propelled by a majority on the Board of Supervisors who have voted repeatedly to use El Toro’s four runways as the centerpiece of a 2,200-acre commercial airfield.

But if Measure W passes next month, the 3-2 bloc could collapse: Two of the pro-airport supervisors have pledged to follow the “will of the voters.” One of them, board Chairwoman Cynthia P. Coad, is also locked in a reelection battle against an El Toro airport opponent, Fullerton City Councilman Chris Norby.

In Los Angeles, similar pressure against a major expansion of LAX--fueled by last year’s hotly contested mayoral race--led the city to abandon its plan in favor of a much smaller one.

Anti-airport sentiment in Orange County has grown in recent years, according to The Times polls. Majority support for an airport alternative--no matter which one--also hasn’t wavered.

In 1998, 56% of voters backed a plan for homes and businesses at the former Marine base--but that plan didn’t make it to the ballot. In February 2000, a year after it surfaced, the park plan also was backed by 56% of voters.

The latest Times poll found that among the arguments against Measure W, the most potent with voters is the potential cost of the so-called Great Park, the plan upon which Measure W is based.

More than half do not believe the park can be built without tax dollars. However, concerns raised in recent months that the base is too contaminated to develop as a park held little sway on either side, with the majority of voters saying they don’t believe this argument.

Asked about an El Toro airport’s effect on the county, six in 10 voters cited negative effects--noise, pollution, traffic--and four in 10 noted positive ones--jobs, convenience. Even those who support the park acknowledged that an airport would bring jobs and economic growth.

Unhappiness over how the future of the base has been handled resonates throughout the county. Half of voters disapprove of the county’s actions, with approval coming from one in five.

Poll respondent and airport foe Ron Cedillos of Laguna Niguel said backers hope Measure W will finally convince the Board of Supervisors to drop its airport planning and concede to voters.

If Measure W passes and supervisors give up on the airport, Orange County will have lost the economic opportunity of an airport and will have abdicated its role as a good neighbor by forcing millions of local passengers to use other airports, Nestande said. He doesn’t buy the argument that South County’s suburban lifestyle would be destroyed by developing El Toro.

“People in Orange County bought into an urbanized community,” he said. “Within that, certain infrastructure is needed to support job growth and sustain the economy. If they didn’t want to deal with that, they moved to the wrong area.”