Publicity Cash to Make for Big El Toro Battle

Both sides in the ongoing tussle over the fate of El Toro Marine Corps Air Station are gearing up for a publicity blitzkrieg less than a year before a proposed 1999 referendum on plans to build an international airport is presented to Orange County voters.

Campaign officials estimate that a countywide initiative could cost at least $4.5 million--$3 million for airport foes and $1.5 million for pro-airport forces.

Already more than $3 million has been allocated or spent in the last two years on El Toro public information. That’s in addition to $4.5 million spent by both sides from 1994 to 1996 on two voter initiatives that ratified airport plans.

A renewed anti-airport effort has begun with a $200,000 advertising campaign to promote the Millennium Plan, a non-airport alternative for El Toro being pushed by a coalition of South County cities and residents.

Organizers of the proposed initiative want voters next year to choose between the Millennium Plan, centered on a central park and commercial uses for the 4,700-acre base, and an international airport.

“We’ve got a real nice alternative for El Toro and we want everyone to know about it,” said Paul Eckles, executive director of the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, the anti-airport group sponsoring the campaign.

So far, most of this year’s $1.2-million budget to fight the airport has come from South County cities. Seven of the cities make up the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority.

Informing the public about the El Toro airport plan has fallen to the county, which budgeted $800,000 on a public-information campaign for the coming year. In addition, Newport Beach kicked in $175,000 for three months’ worth of services from two public relations firms to promote the El Toro airport.

But all government spending, either supporting or opposing the airport, must end once an initiative is qualified for the ballot. State law bars public funds from being spent for political purposes. The burden then will shift to private donors or organizations that accept donations from non-government sources.

“That’s when the adult money kicks in,” said Dave Ellis, a consultant for the Airport Working Group, composed of Newport Beach residents who favor an El Toro airport to block expansion of John Wayne Airport.

Pro-airport forces argued that the anti-airport campaign rolled out recently is an attempt to influence voters on a political issue using government money, since the funding for the reuse authority comes from the seven member cities.

“They’re spending money in a pre-campaign mode. They’re pushing the envelope,” said Bruce Nestande, president of Citizens for Jobs and the Economy, the group formed in 1994 to promote an El Toro airport.

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But Eckles countered that the money is being spent to promote a non-aviation alternative for El Toro, regardless of the 1999 initiative.

Already, the El Toro authority has paid more than $1 million to the public relations firms of Stoorza, Ziegaus & Metzger and Waters & Faubel over the past year.

The group has begun placing signs on 10 buses throughout Orange County promoting the Millennium Plan, with a snazzy new motto--”The Dawn of a New Era For Orange County: The Millennium Plan”--plus a toll-free phone number providing information on the proposal.

Eckles said the buses will travel throughout Orange County--not just in South County, where residents appear to be solidly against the airport and in support of the alternative plan.

The entire campaign--including print and cable television advertising, bus shelter ads and multimedia presentations--will cost about $200,000.

Pro-airport forces conceded that the push to raise the visibility of an alternative to airport plans for El Toro means their side will have to counter--and soon. Plans call for the initiative to qualify with enough voter signatures so it can be placed on a special election ballot before the Marines leave the base in July.

Newport Beach, which has promoted an alternative airport to John Wayne for decades, is expected to extend its three-month contracts with public relations firms Hill & Knowlton and Fleishman-Hillard.

Ellis estimated that the Airport Working Group is spending about $10,000 a month to promote the El Toro airport and is gearing up to spend more once anti-airport forces begin circulating initiative petitions.

In addition, Citizens for Jobs and the Economy, funded largely by developer George Argyros, has spent about $100,000 since January on mailers promoting an airport. The group was formed in 1994 to promote Measure A, which created zoning for an international airport at El Toro, and to defeat Measure S, a failed attempt by South County cities in 1996 to rescind Measure A.