LETTERS
El Toro, Cont’d
Rex Ricks and Donald Nyre are prolific pro-El Toro letter writers. On July 15, the pair jumped on anti-airport activist Mike Smith with their usual barrage of vitriol and misinformation. I am pleased to join Mike’s tag team with some facts.
The pro-El Toro side writes about being “vehemently opposed to serving south county’s explosive growth and avaricious appetite.” Wow!
In 1993, Los Angeles World Airports studied who uses LAX. It shows that only about one-fifth of all of the Orange County traffic at LAX comes from “avaricious” South County. The biggest chunk of the air travel attributed to this county comes from Disneyland in North County.
The pro-El Toro, anti-LAX, anti-John Wayne crowd greatly exaggerates the relatively small number of passengers from South County for political purposes.
Len Kranser
Editor
El Toro Info Site
Dana Point
Mayor Agran and the city of Irvine have done a masterful job of creating an El Toro reuse plan that accomplishes all the goals that were called “impossible” by pro-airport forces. The proposal provides the Navy with handsome sale values via a public auction of choice parcels; creates space for numerous worthy educational, cultural, and recreational facilities; reserves wide swaths of open space and parkland for Orange County residents to enjoy; and does all this without raising taxes.
How much longer do we have to listen to pro-airport lies and distortions?
Jaysen Gillespie
Irvine
Now we see what Irvine and the Navy were really doing these last several months. They were doing the business of the people. They were negotiating a “win-win” deal.
Michael Smith
Mission Viejo
We’ve run a test on Irvine’s latest version of the “Great Park” concept. Our test is simple,can your family have a picnic on the sub-parcels outlined in Irvine’s plans?
Our findings show that it might be possible to have a family picnic on 671 acres (19% of the property) at the “Great Park” if your family doesn’t mind eating on former runways that are likely riddled with toxic contamination.
The “Great Park” bait-and-switch that began with Measure W continues with this version of the plan. The only part of this plan that will become a reality is the massive development that results from the sale of the parcels.
Since the passage of Measure W, we’ve witnessed the Great Park morph into 3,400 new houses and 2.9 million square feet of commercial development. And if Irvine ever annexes El Toro, this version of the “Great Park” will be revised again, again and again, because the city is exempt from the Measure W zoning.
Richard F. Taylor
Vice President
Airport Working Group
Newport Beach
School Project
The Urban School Assistance Project, a partnership between the Diocese of Orange and Orange County business, is an important project both pragmatically and philanthropically.
Pragmatically, because it is designed to provide support to 12 urban schools, with largely Hispanic student bodies, seriously impacted by our county’s rapidly changing demographics. These girls and boys will be our business and civic leaders, as well as our employees, in the years ahead. Philanthropically, because a tax-deductible gift to the Urban School Assistance Project offers one of the very best opportunities to exercise corporate responsibility, as study after study has shown that Catholic schools simply do a better job at educating minority students than any other institution.
Businesses may partner with the Diocese of Orange at $500, $1,000, $3,000, $5,000 levels or more by making a check out to The Orange Catholic Foundation/USAP and mailing it to me at the Marywood Diocesan Center, 2811 East Villa Real Drive, Orange, CA 92863. All monies received will go directly to the “bottom line” operating budgets of these important, but threatened, urban schools.
For more information, I can be reached at sseagraves@rcbo.org or (714) 282-3101. All readers are invited to check our Website at www.rcbo.org., then clicking to Schools, then going to the Department of Catholic Schools.
Skip Seagraves
Diocesan Development Director for Catholic Schools
The Diocese of Orange
Deep Thought
In the rapid arrest of Samantha’s accused killer, has anyone noted that in addition to using the police, people and press,we profiled! No time was lost looking for 60-year-old grandmas with gray hair and no mustache.
The four “Ps” work!
Michael Arnold Glueck
Newport Beach
