The Bush Way
DICK CHENEY LAST WEEK OUTLINED THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S NATIONAL energy strategy. While the details will follow, the approach emphasizes production over rationing, private initiatives over bureaucracies and efficiency over austerity. Cheney plugged the virtues of coal and even of nukes, noting that nuclear power has zero emissions of greenhouse gasses.
After all of the blarney emanating from Sacramento lately, it was refreshing to hear some common sense from Washington, D.C. The balance between a clean environment and the development of our natural resources can be struck more toward the supply side, and the Bush administration plans to move in that direction. Contrary to what Gray Davis would have you believe, power producers aren’t the problem, they’re a key part of the solution.
Without a clear, coherent energy strategy, Cheney warned, all Americans could one day find themselves in California’s predicament.
Now there’s a scary thought.
Green and Mean
IF SLICK BROCHURES DETERMINE THE COURSE OF EVENTS, THEN THE proposed commercial airport at El Toro is already a lost cause. Measure A will be repealed and we’re going to have a Great Park, or Central Park, or Nature Preserve, or Huge Leafy Green Something, or Weed World where the jets used to fly.
The anti-airport forces last week launched a petition drive, likely aiming for next March’s ballot, to kill an El Toro commercial airport once and for all. However, in reality this drive has already been going on for months, in the form of television spots and blanketed mailings that have promoted a great park at El Toro, blasted the county’s airport plan and touted the adequacy of John Wayne and out-of-county sites for meeting Orange County’s aviation needs. It’s been an impressive effort, especially in the sheer, relentless volume of it. It’s certainly broken the spirit of some El Toro airport partisans, and persuaded more than a few fence-sitters to climb down and avoid the fire.
To stop this drive, the pro-airport forces are going to need to display a level of public relations skill and teamwork heretofore lacking. They will need to spend wisely the several million dollars that the county and Newport Beach have pledged for the effort. And, after all of that, they may still need a miracle. But one of the nice things about an election is that you sometimes actually get to debate the issues.
As I write this, I have seven colorful brochures in front of me, just the latest to arrive in the mail in recent days. Five of them promote an El Toro great park. Another assures me that John Wayne is “close to perfect” for meeting OC’s share of regional airport demand and the other says Inland Empire airports are ready to serve. But while all of these brochures are filled with nice pictures and reassuring messages, they lack any financial or other gritty details about how we turn a Marine base into Central Park West.
So, as a prelude to the election debate, I toss out a few questions:
+++Who says we’ll get the base for a great park? The federal government is in the process of deeding El Toro to the county, free of charge, for use as an airport. Federal base-conversion guidelines indicate that land not used for economic redevelopment purposes is to be sold.
+++If the county has to buy the base before it can turn it into a park, how much will it cost? How will that impact local taxpayers?
+++Even if the land were to come free, how much will it cost to develop and maintain it? Who will pay for this? A brochure refers to money coming from the state, the federal government and corporate sponsorships. Specifics, please.
+++A brochure claims a public agency could generate $26 million to $32 million a year from the base site, enough to operate the great park and build a $250 million endowment over 10 years. A business plan, please. Irvine’s sketchy Millennium Phase III Master Plan shows some $20 million coming from conversion of existing base facilities into housing, storage, offices and incubators. Who will pay for the upgrades and at what cost? Will there be charges to walk in the park, or to park at the park?
+++Doesn’t the county’s airport plan call for many of the same recreational uses and open-space set-asides as the great park plan?
+++John Wayne is currently serving seven to eight million passengers a year, and is effectively “maxed out” on flights given its current configuration and curfew. Yet a brochure refers to county EIR No. 573 in claiming that John Wayne could handle up to 14 million passengers “without physical expansion.” While the cited document includes an option for having JWA serve 14 million passengers “within its current property boundaries,” that plan would require a runway extension, more gates and other improvements costing an estimated $250 million; general aviation would have to move out and noise would increase for some homes. Is this what great park proponents mean when they say John Wayne could be more fully utilized without expansion?
I could go on, but this should be enough for starters.
Let’s Play Nice
THIS IS RICH. HAVING SPENT WEEKS CARPET BOMBING OC MAILBOXES, the anti-airport forces called for a cease-fire last week, just as the pro-airport side was gearing up for its own PR offensive. After spending public funds opposing the airport, they even suggested it might be illegal to spend public money promoting an airport. Dana Reed, a lawyer for pro-airport cities, had the appropriate response: “Pure poppycock.”
