Coalition For A Responsible Airport Solution

While Orange County officials battle plans to close the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station at the highest levels in Washington, rival citizens groups are poised for a gritty ground war. Facing each other on opposite sides of the base-closure issue are the Newport Beach-based Airport Working Group and the Irvine-based Coalition for a Responsible Airport Solution.

While Orange County officials battle plans to close the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station at the highest levels in Washington, rival citizens groups are poised for a gritty ground war. Facing each other on opposite sides of the base-closure issue are the Newport Beach-based Airport Working Group and the Irvine-based Coalition for a Responsible Airport Solution.

The City Council has adopted a resolution opposing commercial airline use of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, and agreed to join the Coalition for a Responsible Airport Solution. The council last year had reaffirmed its longstanding policy of opposing civilian use of the Marine base. Last month, a group of leaders and elected representatives from the south Orange County area formed the airport coalition to help lobby against such commercial use.

Re "Joint Use of El Toro Opposed by 59% in Poll," (Nov. 16): The poll sponsored by the coalition for a responsible airport solution regarding the joint civil/military use of El Toro Marine Corps Air Station is very encouraging, to say the least. Now all we have to do is convince a few more people of the pressing need to share the use of El Toro and we'll see some action. Then we could retire the useless study committees, save Orange County taxpayers a great deal of money, solve the air transport problem and in the process reassure the Marines that by sharing their vast under-utilized facility, they get to stay in Orange County a while longer.

A divided City Council this week rejected a proposal to spend as much as $2,000 toward the production of a videotape opposing the closure of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. The action, taken on a 3-2 vote at Tuesday's council meeting, comes less than a month after council members expressed strong opposition to the recommended base closure. Councilman William A.

The city is moving to annex the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in an effort to prevent it from being turned into a commercial airport. The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to file an annexation request with the military and perform other legal work. By having the base within the city limits, Irvine would be in a stronger position to fight off proposals to turn the base into an airport, City Councilman William A. (Art) Bloomer said.

A homeowners coalition said Wednesday that it has raised nearly $60,000 and recruited individuals and organizations representing a total of 3,700 people in a campaign against proposed joint civilian-military use of El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. "This idea (joint use) rises from the ashes on a periodic basis, and we want to put it to bed once and for all," said Irvine City Councilwoman Sally Anne Miller, president of the Coalition for a Responsible Airport Solution.

An Orange County airport committee charged Rep. C. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) Thursday with interfering in local plans to find an alternative to John Wayne Airport by introducing federal legislation to bar commercial aircraft from the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. The Airport Site Coalition, a county-sanctioned and federally funded private organization that is searching for an alternative airport for Orange County, said in a press conference Thursday that Cox's action "disrupts the due process of our airport site search."

In a reversal of action taken earlier this month, the City Council this week voted unanimously to allocate $2,000 to a group working to prevent the closure of El Toro Marine Air Station. The vote came two weeks after the council refused to give the Coalition for a Responsible Airport Solution $2,000 toward the production of a video that describes why the base should remain open.

Community leaders who are forming a countywide coalition to oppose commercial flights at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station said Monday that joint use with the military would worsen Orange County's air safety, traffic congestion and other problems. "It's obvious to us that (joint use) would cause a degradation in the quality of life," said Marsha Rudolph, president of the Saddleback Area Coordinating Council, an umbrella group for homeowners associations.