El Toro, Cont’d
In response to recent articles and letters suggesting that Orange County is using tax dollars to fund public relations efforts for the county’s proposed reuse plan for El Toro, we wanted to set the record straight.
The El Toro Local Redevelopment Authority has approved $8 million to a public information program to facilitate the outreach effort portion of the draft Environmental Impact Report 573 process.
These funds are generated from parking and concession revenues at John Wayne Airport not taxpayer money. John Wayne Airport and El Toro Airport are a two-airport system allowing the county to utilize revenue generated from John Wayne to support planning and implementation of the reuse plan for El Toro.
It is important to note that a majority of money, approximately $40 million, spent by the county to date has been toward required studies to measure the project’s impact on the environment and develop the county’s proposed master plan and other alternatives.
This level of study and planning is an important part of any significant development project both in the public and private sector. To date, we can show the research and deliverables for EIR 563, draft EIR 573 and draft Airport System Master Plan.
These planning costs are commensurate for any complex infrastructure project. (On the other hand, those opposed to an aviation reuse at El Toro have reportedly expended $40 million in misleading public information paid in part with taxpayer funds generated by residents of a few Orange County cities.)
The El Toro Local Redevelopment Authority is anxious to provide information to the county’s almost three million residents about El Toro Airport through its “Just the Facts” program that will commence in August. Regardless of your personal position on the reuse of El Toro, it is important to base opinion on facts.
The El Toro Master Plan includes a state-of-the-art airport, parks and open space, commercial and industrial improvements, retail services, community services, recreational facilities and educational facilities.
The County’s residents deserve to know the facts about the proposed plan for El Toro. We look forward to sharing the information over the coming months.
At your service,
Gary Simon
Executive Director
El Toro Local Redevelopment Authority (LRA)
Wow! Mission Viejo reader Michael Smith really pulled out all the stops in his June 25 letter comparing a hoped-for “large open parkland” with a despised “massive airport” at the former MCAS El Toro.
To begin with, the Central Park with “museums” and “university campuses” he espouses ain’t gonna happen. People who know say the chances of them ever being developed on the site hover somewhere between slim and none.
Whoever gets stuck with this white elephant of a park will have to spend, according to the Orange County Taxpayers Association, over a billion taxpayer dollars to prepare the base and analyze and clean up 886 contaminated “locations of concern” (some of which are “cancer risks”) identified by the Restoration Advisory Board. I calculate that to just dig up and cart away El Toro’s four main runways will cost $42 million.
El Toro will have to be some “massive airport” to cause the “huge traffic jams on roadways from Yorba Linda to Santa Ana to San Clemente” Smith foresees.
According to Southern California Association of Governments studies, an airport at El Toro will actually reduce freeway traffic and air pollution.
Removing El Toro from the list of regional commercial airports will not reduce air travel demand. South County residents will join other air travelers in what would be El Toro’s market area in fighting their way on crowded freeways to more distant airports.
So, OCBJ readers, be careful how you vote next March if the Central Park and Open Space Initiative is on the ballot. If you vote “yes” you might just get what you ask for…right in the wallet.
Norm Ewers
Irvine
Thanks for the story on aviation/cargo demands in the June 25 issue.
I posted a reference to the story on ocnow.com for those asking questions on the need for El Toro. Keep these types of articles coming!
What I found most interesting was that the Irvine Co. and Irvine are generating the greatest need for El Toro with all the high-tech jobs and businesses established and proposed, yet they pretend that there is no demand for El Toro.
These bakers want to bake all the cakes and eat them, too.
In the Daily Pilot was a letter to the editor that asked an important question: Just how many people in Orange County have taken the time to tour JWA and the environs to see first-hand the conditions, in contrast to how many people have taken the time to tour MCAS El Toro?
One of the things I wanted to achieve with our Web site (ocxeltoro.com) was to post .mpeg movies of flights over El Toro, JWA, Ontario, Long Beach, Burbank and LAX airports to show people first hand the conditions of each, and why El Toro makes sense.
Russell Niewiarowski
The New Millennium Group
Santa Ana Heights
