COMMENT: Endgame
BARRING A MIRACLE, THE PROPOSED EL TORO AIRPORT CRASHES NEXT WEEK.
Commentary
by Rick Reiff
With the expected passage of Measure W, an anti-airport majority could form on the board of supervisors and The Irvine Company will start putting homes and offices in the 14,000-acre buffer zone surrounding the 4,600-acre former Marine base. No matter what political or legal maneuvering might ensue, it will be time to move on.
And, obviously, life will go on in Orange County. This will remain a wonderful place to live and work, companies will continue to thrive here and the Business Journal will find other issues on which to opine.
But amid next week’s likely celebration, we’ll be spoilsports who assert that Orange County has committed a tragic blunder, turning its back on a billion-dollar gift in a misguided decision that will surpass Bob Citron’s bankruptcy in its lasting damage.
Sure, there will be some solution someday to the region’s air-travel crunch. Maybe we’ll eventually run bullet trains to the desert or to Camp Pendleton. There will be no shortage of planners, engineers, consultants and builders ready to tap taxpayers’ pockets to pay for ambitious infrastructure schemes. Won’t that be more fun than just flipping the switch on a ready-to-go airstrip at El Toro?
But however it works out, Orange County air travelers won’t see cheap and convenient flights any time in the foreseeable future. OC’s economy will be a little weaker, a little less vibrant than it might have been. And those ills,noise, pollution, congestion,that South County residents unduly worry will be brought about by a relatively small, carefully planned airport, will arrive in time anyway, as the base and vacant land are carved up by developers.
The Irvine Company says its encroachment into parts of the old military-aircraft buffer zone shouldn’t affect a proposed commercial airport because it is following a plan that still respects the smaller “noise footprint” created by commercial jets. But try using that argument to revive the airport plan once the people start moving in.
Oh, well. We’ll have the Great Park to kick around while we watch weeds grow and wait for the bulldozers.
, Rick Reiff
