V-plan heads back to starting line

Paul Clinton

NEWPORT BEACH -- His first initiative has hit the skids, but Newport

Beach resident Charles Griffin isn’t giving up on his dream runway

alignment for the proposed El Toro airport.

Griffin, the author of what has become known as the V-plan, said he is

readying a new initiative to put before voters. His last initiative would

have rezoned the base to allow the alternate runway alignment.

Griffin said he would resubmit the new initiative to the Orange County

registrar of voters sometime next week, after the earlier measure died on

the vine.

The 180 days required to gather more than 71,000 signatures to get the

initiative on the ballot fell by the wayside earlier this month. Griffin

submitted the measure to the county Aug. 6.

Griffin, who needed 71,206 names, said he secured about 1,000

signatures.

With the vote on Measure W less than a week away, Griffin said the

V-plan is the last chance for an airport at the base. Polls have shown

South County’s Great Park initiative leading. Measure W would rezone the

base from airport to open space, severely hampering the county’s attempt

to build an airport there.

“One hundred eighty days have gone by and we don’t have [the names],

so we need to start over,” Griffin said. “In order to get El Toro, we

went with the V-plan, which would not bother anybody.”

The V-plan measure would alter the zoning at the base to allow the

board to tear out the existing east-west runway. Under the concept, a

second runway would be built off the northwestern edge of the north-south

runway to form a “V” pattern.

Despite Griffin’s enthusiasm for his plan, it has not garnered

widespread support. Orange County airport planners have dismissed it as

unworkable, and the Federal Aviation Administration has refused to

consider it.

South County leaders fighting an airport of any kind have rejected it

out of hand.

Airport boosters say it couldn’t be implemented and shouldn’t be

supported.

“It’s known that there is very little support for that plan,” said Tom

Naughton, the president of the Airport Working Group. “It’s been reviewed

by the county. They concluded it was not viable.”