Study Funding Fuels El Toro Debate

* During discussions concerning the budget for study of the Marine Corps air station conversion, county representatives admitted what Taxpayers for Responsible Planning has claimed all along--that the county doesn’t have a clue what it will cost to develop El Toro.

Nor can the county agree on what it will cost to even study what it will cost. Current estimates have ranged from $3 million to $11 million to $13 million. Then, after gaining supervisorial approval for the $13-million budget, county bureaucrats said they needed another $7 million (Aug. 27).

If the county staff personnel can’t estimate planning costs to within a factor of $7 million, then clearly these people do not have the expertise to run this program.

If the current Board of Supervisors continues to allow them to budget in this manner, then this Board of Supervisors clearly does not contain the people we need to lead this county.

BILL KOGERMAN

Taxpayers for

Responsible Planning

Lake Forest

* The Orange County Board of Supervisors voted to spend $20 million next year to study the implementation of their El Toro airport proposal--44% more than the earlier estimate of the study. Meanwhile, they voted down a proposal to study non-aviation uses for the property as promised in their December 1996 airport meeting.

With decisions like these, it’s no wonder the board had to [consider] a $400,000 airport public relations campaign to attempt to rebuild faith in the county government.

RICHARD G. PLAVETICH

Laguna Beach

* Maryanne Rose from Laguna Nigel applauds and justifies Supervisor Tom Wilson for working against the El Toro airport because she claimed “his job is not to do what Newport Beach and the other supervisors want him to do, his job is to fight for the best interests of the people he represents” (Letters, Aug. 22).

Maybe Rose is ignorant of the fact that Wilson is Newport Beach’s representative also. Unfortunately, he continues to ignore us by actively opposing our position on the airport issue.

I’m sure Rose and others of her ilk won’t dwell on the unfairness of that, though, but instead will quickly justify it in some way. Caught up in their own little world, most South County residents have no consideration or compassion for Newport Beach residents who have been forced to endure the entire county’s air traffic needs.

Rather than share that burden, since South County is where the vast majority of growth has taken place, their answer is to expand John Wayne Airport even more.

Then, when Newport Beach complains, they throw insults our way and boycott our businesses. They have become unreasonable, uncompromising people and, most distressing of all, they seem to be proud of it.

JOHN NEIL

Newport Beach

* In responding to my Aug. 10 column on El Toro flight tests, a reader from Westminster wrote that I “used misinformation and suppositions to try and convince readers why the much demanded flight tests over South County would not work.”

While it is certainly appropriate for people to disagree on the question of flight tests or for that matter the entire question of El Toro reuse, this remark is untrue.

For the record, statements in my commentary were derived from the draft environmental impact report, most especially the Airport Development Report and Technical Report “H,” Noise Analysis.

Although these documents are technical in nature and do not make for an easy read, perhaps they would prove informative to those who doubt the validity of the concerns of both airline pilots, such as myself, and South County residents regarding the question of El Toro reuse planning.

GEORGE MON

Laguna Niguel