Airport Backers Float Their Own Ballot Measures

A group supporting the proposed El Toro airport said Tuesday it will ask Orange County supervisors to place three measures on the March ballot to take the bite out of a pending anti-airport initiative.

Airport foes quickly labeled the new committee’s move an attempt to confuse voters and puncture the prospects of the Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative, which would require a two-thirds public vote to build or expand airports, large jails near homes and hazardous-waste landfills.

Longtime Los Alamitos Councilman Ronald Bates, who heads the newly formed Citizens Right-to-Vote Committee, said a second county airport is too important to fall victim to a South County ballot initiative that he said is well-intentioned but “goes too far.”

“We’ve already voted twice [on El Toro], and that should have been sufficient,” said Bates, who is past president of the League of California Cities. “We certainly hope the supervisors will look at these [measures] and see that it makes sense to give the citizens some alternatives.”

The committee will ask the supervisors at their meeting Tuesday to place the proposed measures on the March ballot, which also will contain the anti-airport Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative.

The three measures raise the level of debate even higher over the county’s most divisive political and societal issue as both sides gear up for a third countywide showdown on the future use of the 4,700-acre Marine Corps Air Station, which closed in July.

One of the new measures would require--another would allow--the Board of Supervisors to seek a majority public vote before approving jails and landfills--but not airports. The third measure would be an advisory vote on whether the board should transfer airport planning and operations to a new government agency run by the county and cities.

The Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative qualified for the ballot earlier this month after gathering enough voter signatures.

The Board of Supervisors, which has passed El Toro plans for the past five years on 3-2 votes, has until Dec. 10 to place any new measures on the March ballot. State law authorizes county supervisors to place measures on local ballots.

At Tuesday’s board meeting, supervisors are expected to order an economic analysis of the anti-airport initiative before putting it on the ballot.

Board Chairman Charles V. Smith said the proposed new measures, to be delivered to board offices today, also will be discussed Tuesday. Smith, who supports El Toro, said they should receive the same type of analysis as the anti-airport initiative.

“We’ll treat them the same way,” said Smith, reached at a fund-raiser Tuesday evening at the offices of businessman and airport financial donor George Argyros.

Airport Foes Want Signatures Required

Argyros, who already has spent about $2 million promoting an airport for El Toro, called the prospect of competing measures to the anti-airport initiative “terrific.”

“If we can get that airport built, it will be the finest thing we can do for Orange County for the next hundred years,” he said.

Other pro-airport supervisors have said previously that they could not comment on ballot alternatives before seeing specific proposals. Supervisors Cynthia Coad and Jim Silva both were unavailable for comment Tuesday.

South County residents leading the fight against El Toro said they will urge supervisors to reject the measures. Placing three more options on the ballot only would complicate the issue and force airport opponents to spend even more money than the $2 million they hope to raise, they said.

“If the supervisors really believe in democracy, they’ll require this group to collect 192,000 signatures before these measures are allowed on the ballot,” said Len Kranser with Citizens for Safe and Healthy Communities, referring to the number of initiative signatures gathered by his group.

One countermeasure would give supervisors the authority to ask for voter approval, by a simple majority, before deciding whether to go ahead with plans to build jails and landfills. Another measure would require majority-voter approval before jails and toxic dumps could be built.

Bates said airports weren’t included in the measures because voters already have spoken twice in support of a new airport at El Toro--once in 1994 when the base was designated for a future airport, and again in 1996 when an attempt to rescind the earlier vote failed.

The third new measure would ask, in an advisory vote, if airport planning should be transferred to a separate government entity comprising county and city officials.

Smith and other key airport supervisors have warned in recent weeks that they would be willing to turn over planning for El Toro to a joint-powers authority if that would end a series of planning delays that have pushed the project back at least 18 months.

The possibility of a measure to counter South County’s effort surfaced in early September after airport foes gathered 192,298 signatures to qualify their Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative for the March ballot.

The registrar qualified the initiative on Oct. 14, and anti-airport forces have complained since then that supervisors purposely have delayed placing the measure on the ballot.

A Los Angeles County judge is scheduled to hear arguments next month in a pro-airport lawsuit alleging that the anti-airport initiative’s two-thirds vote requirement is unconstitutional.

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Competing El Toro Measures

Supporters of a commercial airport at El Toro on Tuesday asked county supervisors today to place three alternatives on the March ballot. An anti-airport measure already has qualified for a vote. Here are the proposed titles and a summary of each measure.

Title: Board of Supervisors’ Approval Procedure for Jail and Hazardous Waste Landfill Proposals

Summary: Would allow the board to determine if jail and hazardous-waste landfill projects should be submitted to voters. Approval would be by majority vote.

Title: Majority Vote for Jails and Hazardous Waste Landfill Proposals

Summary: Would require majority approval by county voters before the board could approve any new or expanded jails or hazardous waste landfills.

Title: Advisory Vote

Summary: Asks if the Board of Supervisors should transfer aviation planning and airport implementation responsibility to a joint-powers authority of cities and the county.

Source: Citizens Right-to-Vote Committee