Airports Orange County

In the face of heavy pressure, Orange County Supervisor Jim Silva on Tuesday retreated from his support for another public referendum on whether an international airport should be built at the former El Toro Marine base. Silva, long a supporter of an El Toro airport, stunned colleagues Monday by agreeing with airport foes that another vote was needed.

A much-anticipated vote by Orange County supervisors on building an international airport at the El Toro Marine base took an abrupt detour Monday after a pro-airport board member unexpectedly voted to let the public decide the closed base's fate. The airport would be the first passenger airfield built in the U.S. in recent years.

Orange County residents remain opposed to converting the closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station into an international airport, even if the size of the proposal is reduced, a new public opinion poll shows. The survey by UC Irvine and a Bay Area think tank further indicates that a clear majority of residents favor a ballot initiative next March that would bar aviation uses at the base, which closed in 1999.

Orange County's plan to build a commercial airport at the closed El Toro Marine base was approved in concept Tuesday by the Orange County Planning Commission. The five-member board voted 3 to 2 to recommend approval of the county plan to supervisors, who are scheduled to cast their final vote Monday on the environmental report. That study is among several hurdles in a long process its advocates face in getting the airport approved.

Great Park supporters hauled 175,000 petition signatures in the back of a rented armored truck Wednesday, delivering double the number needed to let Orange County voters decide whether to create an urban preserve rather than build an airport at the former El Toro Marine base. But the validity of the signatures remains in doubt pending a state appeals court decision on whether the language of the proposed March 2002 ballot measure is misleading.

The fourth in a series of public hearings on the county's plan to build an international airport at the former El Toro Marine base will be held tonight. The session, to be hosted by county Supervisor Jim Silva, will include a panel discussion and presentations by county administrators. Past hearings have drawn hundreds of airport supporters and opponents. The supervisors have backed plans for an airport on a 3-2 vote. Tonight's public hearing begins at 6 p.m.

"Great Park" supporters hauled 175,000 petition signatures in a rented armored truck Wednesday, delivering more than double the number needed to let Orange County voters decide whether to build an urban preserve rather than an airport at the former El Toro Marine base. But the validity of the signatures remains in doubt pending a state appeals court decision on whether the language of the proposed March 2002 ballot measure is misleading.

More than 500 people from across Southern California jammed a hearing Tuesday on a proposed El Toro airport in what has become a contentious regional battle over whether Orange County will help alleviate growing air-passenger demand through 2025.

Once a sewage dumping ground, the flat stretch of land in southeast Fullerton was suitable only for a pig farm nearly a century ago. Then airplanes came along. The hogs' haven became a perfect airstrip just before World War I, one of nearly a dozen that sprang up in Orange County as planes began filling the sky in the decades that followed. Fullerton Municipal Airport, almost 90 years old, remains "the last little airport around," said manager Rod Propst.

Once a sewage dumping ground, the flat stretch of land in southwest Fullerton was suitable only for a pig farm nearly a century ago. Then airplanes came along. The hogs' haven became a perfect airstrip just before World War I, one of nearly a dozen that sprang up in Orange County as planes began filling the sky in the decades that followed. Fullerton Municipal Airport remains "the last little airport around," said manager Rod Propst.