Airport Foes Well on the Way to Initiative

Organizers for an anti-airport initiative, boosted by last month’s noise demonstration at El Toro, have collected 90,000 signatures, far more than the 71,000 names of registered voters needed by Sept. 1 to qualify the measure for the ballot next March.

“We’re collecting about 9,000 signatures a week,” said a confident Jeffrey C. Metzger, chairman of Citizens for Safe and Healthy Communities, the petition drive organizer. “We’re still aiming at getting twice the number needed to qualify to ensure success.”

Last month’s noise demonstration at the proposed commercial airport at El Toro “has energized and recharged” airport opponents, primarily in the south end of the county, Metzger said.

The initiative would require two-thirds voter approval for new and expanded airports, jails and hazardous-waste landfills.

To date, the drive has not had to hire signature gatherers, instead relying on an estimated 1,000 volunteers. That has helped keep initiative costs down. Organizers also have sent mailers to residents of both South and North county.

“If we need more [signatures] we wouldn’t hesitate to hire some people to help us,” said Thomas Shepard of San Diego-based Campaign Strategies Inc. “But we feel that at this point it’s not needed.”

Organizers, who held a fund-raising celebration this week, said they were a little concerned about releasing their totals for fear that volunteers, many of whom will be out in force over the holiday weekend, might become complacent.

“We need to keep pushing right up to the end,” Shepard said.

Despite the initiative’s progress, airport supporters said they believe voters ultimately will reject it and support an airport at El Toro as they did in two previous measures.

“I feel that we will win because once we cut through the deception, people will know that this is disguised as a health and safety issue but really it’s an anti-airport initiative,” said former supervisor Bruce Nestande, chairman of a pro-El Toro group formed in 1994 by businessman George L. Argyros.

Meanwhile, Metzger, a Laguna Hills attorney, also is focusing his time on a lawsuit brought by Newport Beach and pro-airport groups that alleges the initiative is unconstitutional and violates state law.

Strategists who support a proposed airport say a simple majority of voters cannot establish a two-thirds criteria for essential projects affecting the county’s future.

“If the initiative is so well-crafted they should have nothing to worry about,” said David L. Ellis, consultant for the Airport Working Group, which supports an airport at El Toro. “We think it’s Swiss cheese.”

Anti-airport forces say the lawsuit was filed to waste their money and defuse their efforts. “We believe that a judge will throw it out,” said Richard Jacobs, an attorney for a seven-city coalition that opposes the airport.