Dear FAA, THANKS FOR NOTHING.
Editorials by Rick Reiff
The El Toro airport was too emotional and too contentious an issue for the OC locals, politicians and businesses alike, to champion on their own. They needed air cover, if you will. You were the one entity that could have provided it.
You’re the federal agency with the mandate and, you’d think, the wherewithal, to make an airport happen. You talk a good game about the need to improve our air transportation system, both through increased efficiency and capacity. El Toro was a golden opportunity, but you blew it. You did nothing. You’re just a bureaucracy,you process problems, you don’t solve them. Good luck with John Wayne and LAX.
Told You So
TWO OF THE ASSERTIONS MADE BY OPPONENTS OF MEASURE W WERE THAT,
one, the “Great Park” envisioned by the initiative was a pipe dream, and two, that Measure W actually represented the beginning of a land grab by Irvine and developers.
It didn’t take long after the passage of W, not even a full day, in fact, for those assertions to be given added credibility.
Of course, the primary intent of W was to kill an airport, and that it has almost certainly done, aided by Chris Norby’s election as supervisor and the Navy’s statement that it will “honor” the Measure W vote. (Way, to go, officers, it’s the first time since the base transfer process was initiated years ago that the Navy has moved with anything other than glacial speed.)
But the Navy’s statement also suggested that much or all of the base will not be deeded to Orange County for a park, but will be put up for sale. Nobody’s going to buy that land, especially contaminated land, to turn it into a “Great Park.”
No, what we’re instead likely to see is the slow, piecemeal parceling of the base for a hodgepodge of developments. Some speculation has Irvine annexing parcels to get them out from under the Measure W restrictions that Irvine fought so hard to pass. Wouldn’t that be ironic? Of course, if Larry Agran and the rest of the Irvine Council want to dispel the cynical hunch that El Toro will now become Irvine Heights, I invite them to take a pledge that the city will not annex any land for a purpose other than the park, open space or institutional uses envisioned by Measure W. What do you say, fellas?
Meanwhile, it’s likely to be open house in The Irvine Company-dominated buffer zone around the base,bonanza! Measure W wasn’t a matter of airport vs. “Great Park.” It was a matter of an airport vs. weeds-and-development. Let the games begin.
Venting
SORRY, BUT I NEED TO GET ALL OF THESE OUT OF my system.
,
Rick Reiff
