Ports Controversy
Regarding your commentary on the “Dubai Demise,” one phrase summarizes the entire situation: Either we believe in free markets or we don’t.
Based on the Unocal sale last year and the attack on DP World/P & O; this year, we do not.
Ron Mallory
Anaheim
El Toro, JWA
During the divisive debate over El Toro reuse, it was impossible to achieve any objective consensus on Orange County’s future airport needs.
Airport advocates said that the county needed an El Toro that could handle 30 million annual passengers or it would face tripling the size of John Wayne airport to 25 million passengers.
Airport opponents countered that John Wayne could handle OC’s future without expansion and Inland Empire airports at Ontario and March in Riverside could accommodate any excess.
The El Toro debate is over but discussion of OC’s real airport needs has yet to resume.
Soon after passage of Measure W that killed El Toro, the Board of Supervisors,in concert with the city of Newport Beach,approved an environmental impact report that found John Wayne runways could handle 14 million passengers, but the supervisors voted to limit the airport to 10.8 million.
Last month, the Federal Aviation Administration released its assessment of demand at each airport in the country in 2025 and projected John Wayne for 16 million passengers.
Newport Beach has been negotiating with the county for over two years to gain control over the area around John Wayne in a campaign to block any future expansion.
The city has devised a package of “sphere issues,” bundling the airport with other negotiating subjects such as the Back Bay tidelands, the Coyote Canyon Landfill and the sheriff’s Harbor Patrol. The city also seeks annexation of Santa Ana Heights just south of the runways.
Before the supervisors cut any new deal with Newport, they should evaluate OC’s future airport needs and John Wayne’s role in meeting those needs. If the solution is to utilize out-of-county airports rather than expand locally, plans must include adequate ground access to these other airports.
Leonard Kranser
Editor, El Toro Info Site
www.eltoroairport.org
State Legislature
The California Legislature has made a historic breakthrough in understanding how to manipulate the time-space continuum, shaking the very foundation of physics.
Eschewing their merely political role, the Sacramento politicians realized that they could apply their lawmaking power to anything. This resulted in a bill mandating time travel for the upcoming June election.
The time travel bill accompanied what was once Gov. Schwarzenegger’s roads, levees and schools “build-it” bond bill.
The governor’s bond bill, transmogrified beyond recognition in the Capitol basement, needed time travel so as not to be in violation of the constitutional single subject rule. The time-travel bill was designed to amend the state constitution just before actually being approved by the voters in the June election,in effect, traveling backwards in time after being approved to legalize its companion bond measure.
The astounding bill was the fruit of the pols’ intense, late-night work in their secret basement laboratory of democracy.
With time travel conquered, California’s Democrats are now planning on tackling the issue of teleportation. With this power, they can switch the capitals of Sacramento and Washington, D.C., to assume the majority in Congress that has eluded them for the past 12 years.
(Note: This satire was inspired by true events. The “time travel” bill is real and was designed to amend the state constitution to legalize a multiple subject bond and prevent constitutional challenges against it from succeeding.)
Chuck DeVore
Assemblyman, R-Irvine
Juane & #324;os, Casinos
The Orange County Board of Supervisors has voted 3-2 to urge formal recognition of the Juane & #324;o Band of Mission Indians as the official Indian nation of OC. Formal recognition is a lengthy process through the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Supervisor Campbell and I dissented, seeking more information about the recognition process and what such federal recognition would mean for OC. Our concern can be spelled in one word: C-A-S-I-N-O.
I have met with Juane & #324;o leaders and respect their desire to maintain their traditions and identity.
To gain recognition, a level of cultural continuity must be demonstrated dating back to pre-conquest days. This is a challenge for a tribe that was “missionized” by the Spanish, was decimated by foreign diseases, whose land was lost to Spanish, Mexican and U.S. governments as well as the subsequent influx of settlers.
Maintaining culture and language through 250 years of such overwhelming historical pressures would be a near-impossible challenge for any group.
Since the proliferation and profitability of Indian reservation gaming began in the 1980s, the issue of tribal recognition and casinos has become closely linked.
Juane & #324;o recognition would make it the first recognized tribe in a heavily urban area. The city of Garden Grove has been looking at a tribal partnership for a Harbor Boulevard casino site. Having a locally recognized tribe would provide a strong incentive.
A casino in OC is still a long way away, but with the enormous potential profits involved, the pressures can build quickly. While I wish the Juane & #324;os well in their efforts at their cultural revitalization, the larger issues must be addressed in a timely manner.
Chris Norby
OC Supervisor
Fourth District
Lou Dobbs, Politics
I had lunch recently with a staunch Republican businessman friend. He commented that he was going to stop watching Lou Dobbs, the CNN business anchor, because he “has turned into a Democrat.”
While Lou Dobbs is far from a Democrat, he and many other traditional Republicans are seeing that the policies of the Bush administration are economic disasters or, like the ports deal, business interests over national safety.
What should traditional Republicans do? How about voting out all of the neocons and the religious nuts and taking back your party?
We Democrats need the balance that traditional Republicans give the best interests of the country. You keep us fiscally balanced, we keep you socially balanced and the arguments between us in these issues find a reasonable middle ground.
Single party rule, by either (see California for the opposite problem) is bad.
Ed St. Amour
Mesa Verde
