Bludau blasts El Toro V-plan

Paul Clinton

NEWPORT BEACH -- The city’s leaders are responding to plans for an

alternative runway alignment at the closed El Toro Marine Corps Air

Station with something less than elation.

To be honest, they’ve thumbed their noses at it. And that point of

view was articulated succinctly in an e-mail letter from City Manager

Homer Bludau to Villa Park Councilman Bob McGowan, a proponent of what

has become known as the “V-plan.”

In the correspondence, obtained by the Daily Pilot on Tuesday, Bludau

said the plan “runs the risk of dividing the North County cities,

alienating the County Board of Supervisors, extending the time needed to

certify [the environmental report] and allowing South County to brainwash

voters into voting for a Central Park.”

The plan, formally known as the Wildland Ranch Alternative, would

reconfigure El Toro’s east-west runway into a V shape.

The county analyzed the V-plan in its environmental report for a

proposed 28.8-million annual passenger airport but discarded it as

unworkable because it relies on the Global Positioning System, a network

of satellites that would allow controllers to direct planes much more

easily. The Federal Aviation Administration has not widely implemented

GPS technology.

County supervisors are feverishly working to lobby the Navy to hand

over the 4,700-acre base so the airport can be built. But South County

leaders who oppose the plans for an airport are pushing for a countywide

vote in March to turn the base into a central park instead.

The V-plan alternative was crafted by Charles Griffin, a retired

aviation engineer who lives in Newport Beach.

McGowan said Bludau’s letter disturbed him and accused the city

manager of trying to protect the Irvine Co. If the V-plan were

implemented, planes would fly over some undeveloped land northwest of the

base owned by the developer.

“I was disgusted,” McGowan said about the e-mail. “There are people in

Newport Beach that have been living off the Irvine Co. for years. It’s

like a company town.”

Bludau dismissed McGowan’s comments outright.

“It’s an easy accusation for people to make, but there isn’t an iota

of truth to it,” Bludau said. “This issue is about quality of life in

this community.”

He added that supporters of an El Toro airport first need to ensure

the airport is built, and then they can worry about details such as the

runways and flight paths.

“It has nothing to do with the Irvine Co.,” he stressed.

Part of the criticism of the V-plan is rooted in Griffin’s proposal to

send planes to the north, instead of to the south, of El Toro.

Bludau and other city leaders have said serious consideration of the

V-plan would derail the county’s efforts to certify its environmental

study of the planned airport. The supervisors are expected to consider it

in September.

Bludau also said in his e-mail: “To me, what you are doing is akin to

Nero fiddling while Rome burns.”

Airport Working Group spokesman Dave Ellis applauded Bludau’s letter.

“Homer is a clear-thinking man,” Ellis said. “I think he has nailed

it.”

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