El Toro May Be Put in Agency Hands

Increasingly frustrated by setbacks in airport planning, Supervisor Charles V. Smith said Friday that he would turn over efforts to build the airfield at the closed El Toro Marine base to a separate government agency--if that’s what it takes to get it built.

Smith, chairman of Orange County’s Board of Supervisors and leader of its pro-airport majority, said that among the setbacks was the county’s failure last week to extend a special state exemption that makes it easier for the board to approve cargo and airline leases.

“I don’t care whether it’s the Board of Supervisors or a joint-powers authority or leasing it to a private company, I just want to be sure that the process is properly done and the airport gets built,” Smith said.

“We have a mandate to build an airport,” he said, referring to the countywide vote in 1994 approving an airport at El Toro. “It’s not important whether the board builds it or it gets built some other way with the board’s participation.”

Two threats loom to the county’s ability to control airport planning.

The first centers on the bare 3-2 board majority shepherding the airport. After Jan. 1, the county will lose its state exemption and will need four votes to approve leases. The two anti-airport board members already have vowed to block any leases.

The second is a South County voter initiative, headed for the March ballot, that would require the county to get approval from two-thirds of county voters before planning airports, large jails or hazardous-waste landfills.

Airport supporters are considering several ways to fight the initiative, including a request to supervisors to put two competing measures on the same ballot in an effort to override the South County initiative, should all pass.

One competing measure would allow a simple majority for voter approval on airport, jail and landfill plans. The other would let supervisors decide whether any plan should go before the voters, again for a majority vote.

Smith said Friday that he has “seen some of the ideas” for other initiatives. “I don’t want to discourage them,” he said. “If someone comes up with a good, solid plan, they should bring it to us.”

Such strategies are in the works only because pro-airport forces are worried that public sentiment has turned against them, South County airport foes said.

“This whole business is nothing more than looking for loopholes to circumvent the will of the people,” said Len Kranser, a South County activist who operates an anti-El Toro Web site.

Talk of turning the airport over to a joint-powers authority--a partnership of government entities that would include the county--has been growing in recent weeks because airport supporters believe that South County’s initiative, if passed, would not affect such an authority. The authority also could be structured to have the same planning, building and operating powers as the county, thereby avoiding supermajority votes.

But airport foes counter that language in the South County measure would block the county from turning over airport planning to such an agency.

As both sides continue their maneuvers, airport planning has been pushed back at least 18 months beyond the county’s initial hope of officially taking over the base last January. The county recently moved its date for final approval of the project from December to May.

County officials had pledged to begin cargo flights July 3, the day after the base closed, but the federal government has not yet approved such a use. There is no new date for starting cargo flights.

The county still plans to open the first phase of the airport in 2005. The airport is expected to handle as many as 28.8 million passengers by 2020.