Group votes to oppose JWA cap extension

Paul Clinton

LAKE FOREST -- South County cities fighting plans for an airport at

the closed El Toro Marine base on Monday revoked their support for

continuing flight restrictions at John Wayne Airport.

At a board meeting Monday in the City Council chambers, the El Toro

Reuse Planning Authority unanimously approved the policy shift.

With the 11-0 vote, the nine-city public agency will begin efforts to

block the extension of the airport’s 1985 settlement agreement that

imposed an 8.4-million annual passenger cap, nighttime curfew of

commercial flights and other restrictions.

The authority will begin lobbying state and federal officials,

consider possible legal action and include the issue in public

information campaigns.

The authority’s policy shift emerged from a frustration with Newport

Beach officials’ unwillingness to compromise, authority board members

said.

“I’m terribly dismayed at the response from the folks in Newport

Beach,” said Wayne Rayfield, an authority member and Dana Point

councilman. “We’ve reached the point that unless there’s some startling

change in the position of Newport Beach, it is time to implement the

[new] policy.”

The authority had passed several resolutions about a year ago

supporting the extension of the so-called consent decree.

Newport Beach and two groups in the city -- the Airport Working Group

and Stop Polluting Our Newport -- have begun work with Orange County

officials to extend the 1985 agreement, which expires in 2005.

The issue has become entangled in the county’s seven-year push to

build an airport at El Toro. Three of the five members of the county’s

board of supervisors support the plans for an airport at El Toro to

relieve a growing demand for flights in the county.

Newport Beach and the Airport Working Group have also lobbied hard for

an El Toro airport.

By revoking their support for limiting future flights out of John

Wayne, South County cities are pushing to expand the county’s only

existing airport, said Airport Working Group attorney Barbara Lichman.

Lichman accused the authority of lobbying to shift future demand out

of their own backyard.

“They’re not interested in the public good,” Lichman said. “They’re

interested in protecting themselves.”

Other North County cities, via their membership in the Orange County

Regional Airport Authority, have also pushed for an El Toro Airport.

Costa Mesa Mayor Libby Cowan on Friday condemned the authority’s

pending action. Garden Grove Mayor Bruce Broadwater spoke Monday.

“ETRPA is a mean-spirited organization,” Broadwater said. “They want

to stop an airport at El Toro in any way they can.”

Before the vote Monday, authority chairman Allan Songstad said the

move wasn’t a form of retaliation.

“This is not a poke in the eye of Newport Beach,” Songstad said. “This

is simply keeping all options on the table.”

The future fate of John Wayne Airport may not even be in the hands of

the county or its cities. The decision to extend the caps will probably

require federal review, officials said, because noise restrictions are a

matter of federal law.

In 1990, Congress passed the Airport Noise and Capacity Act, which

prohibits airports from imposing their own noise measures. At the time,

John Wayne was granted a special exception.

Authority officials said they hope Monday’s move will draw Newport

Beach into a bargaining session.

“I fervently hope that they will come and talk to us and ask for

help,” said Paul Eckles, the authority’s executive director. “We want to

take both options off the table.”

Eckles said the authority would fight the expansion of John Wayne if

El Toro was dead.

While Monday’s action was a reversal of the authority’s position a

year ago, Airport Working Group spokesman Dave Ellis said he wasn’t

surprised.

“I don’t think this is a position change,” Ellis said. “When they

inject themselves with truth serum, this has always been their position.”

QUESTION

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