In fact, those fibs won’t fly

CHRISTOPHER COX

A recent letter writer from Costa Mesa offered Daily Pilot readers

some bad facts. In the guise of “simple math,” he tried to pass off a

few canards as truth:

First, the writer wrongly asserted that the El Toro Marine Corps

Air Station property sold for “$174,644 per acre” -- way below

market. He arrived at that number by counting thousands of acres of

base property that the buyer has to immediately give back to Irvine

or can’t develop for profitable uses.

If his point is he wishes more of the base property were sold, and

less given away to local government, I agree. In fact, however, only

about 650 acres of the former base property can be developed for

profit.

Fully 3,000 acres of the base will be permanently dedicated as

open space.

Second, the writer questions whether it is true that the $649

million the Navy received from the El Toro auction is more than from

any base sale “in U.S. history.” Well, it is true -- and by a wide

margin.

Not only is it the largest base-closure land sale in history, it’s

yielded more than all previous base sales combined.

I agree with the writer on one point: The fact that the proceeds

received by the Navy were less than the over $1 billion cost of

relocating the Marines from El Toro establishes that, as a financial

matter, the closure was ill advised.

That is precisely the reason I so strongly opposed the closure of

El Toro in the first place.

* REP. CHRISTOPHER COX represents Newport Beach in Congress.