A LOOK AHEAD * Five years ago, plans for a major airfield in Orange County appeared solid. But now, . . . : Dark Clouds Are Hanging Over Proposed El Toro Airport

SANTA ANA —  The picture of an El Toro airport that seemed so clear when voters gave it a slender stamp of approval five years ago now is muddied from miscues and mistakes that have angered airport supporters and severely delayed plans.

Last week, the pro-airport majority on the Orange County Board of Supervisors signaled its displeasure--and its readiness to remove the planning process from county hands. It voted 3 to 2 to seek membership in a multigovernment agency that could take over planning and construction of an airport.

The scene was much rosier in 1994 when the county promised a major international airport at El Toro that would act as an engine to propel the local economy and establish Orange County as a destination on the worldwide map.

The dissonance over El Toro planning has spread throughout Southern California, where federal, state and regional officials are trying to figure out how the area can absorb an expected doubling of airline passengers by 2020. In Los Angeles, where some residents are battling a 50% expansion of Los Angeles International Airport, civic leaders are scornful about El Toro delays, saying that Orange County has to do its share to help serve future regional demand.

Since 1994, airport plans for El Toro have taken so many detours that even supporters aren’t sure which road will lead to opening what would be Southern California’s second-largest airfield. Public perception remains mired in an unshakable shroud of skepticism.

“The way things are going, I don’t think it’ll be built in my lifetime,” said Ted Hoffman, a stockbroker and pilot who lives in Irvine.

No better symbol exists for the community’s fractured psyche over El Toro than the 3-2 votes that the Board of Supervisors has taken to inch along efforts toward airport construction.

County officials blame challenges by airport foes for the wave of delays that have called into question an announced 2005 opening date for an international airport that would serve 28.8 million passengers a year by 2020.

But business leaders blame the supervisors and county planners.

“I think it’s clear that they oversold the airport from the very beginning,” said one business leader close to pro-airport supervisors. “The problem is that instead of approaching it as a public works project, they approached it as a public relations project.”

Indeed, both sides have spent more than $6 million altogether since 1994 in feverish, but so far futile, efforts to sway public opinion. Polls over the past three years show no change in views: The most recent poll found that 46% of the county residents questioned said they opposed an airport at El Toro, while 42% said they favored it. The rest remain undecided.

In a shift in focus last month, Orange County businessman George Argyros, the largest private donor to the pro-airport cause, retained former U.S. Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor in Washington to lobby the federal government. Argyros considers the top priority to be ensuring that the Navy conveys the base for an airport--without any further glitches.

The planning process has suffered many defeats so far.

The major casualty occurred this year: Cargo flights that supervisors had promised would begin July 3--the day after the Marine base closed--have yet to materialize. The main reason for the failure is that county officials have been unable to secure a master lease with the Navy to manage the property after the Marines left. The base isn’t expected to be deeded to the county for another year or two.

Cargo flights were intended as both practical and psychological landmarks: Supporters expected that the flights would provide immediate economic benefits as well as cement the county’s plans for a future airport.

County officials today have no idea when cargo flights will begin. An application will be filed with the Navy in the coming weeks for a master lease, but the proposed agreement contains no plans for any flights.

“Cargo is in the future, I just can’t give a date,” said Michael L. Lapin, who took over management of the county’s El Toro program office in July.

In another setback, top county officials missed their own optimistic pledge--written and signed by them in 1996--to win the Navy’s blessing for an airport by last January. That action won’t come now until next spring at the earliest.

In addition, a plan to rent the officers’ club for banquets and weddings unraveled after the Navy refused to permit the sale of alcohol. Before the Navy will allow such sales, a state agency must approve an agreement to turn over police authority on the base from the federal government to the state. A hearing is scheduled in December before the state Lands Commission.

The county has been left with managing a few community services at the base, including the golf course, horse stables, recreational-vehicle storage lot and the officers’ club, which recently reopened for lunches without a bar.

There have been other retreats from once-trumpeted elements of the airport plan. They include a proposal to pair the airport with an ambitious commercial and research-and-development center, an idea scrapped after it failed to spark much interest. In its place came the so-called lean and green airport designed as the centerpiece of a rambling regional park with two golf courses.

Late last month, pro-airport Supervisor Cynthia Coad threw another curve into planning by suggesting that the airport be built to handle no more than 18.8 million passengers a year, the number it is expected to serve by 2010. If a future Board of Supervisors wants to expand the terminal, it could do so later, she said.

“It gets to a point that the people of Orange County can’t get a handle on what we’re talking about,” said Meg Waters, spokeswoman for the anti-airport El Toro Reuse Planning Authority. The authority, a coalition of eight south county cities, is pushing a plan for construction of homes and office and commercial buildings at the base.

“You’d figure that five years into it, they’d have a rock-solid idea of what they wanted,” she said. “What this shows us is that they don’t know what they’re doing and they’re grasping at straws because they have no consensus for this airport. They keep changing the plan to try to get what they think will bring them more support.”

Airport backers argue that this very evolution is what good planning is all about. Had the airport proposal been carved in stone before the planning process started, they say, residents would have been denied the opportunity to discuss and streamline the plan.

“It’s important to do good planning so you get it right the first time,” said David Ellis, a consultant with the Airport Working Group, which supports an El Toro airfield.

Troubled attempts elsewhere to transform military air bases to commercial use--like those at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino and George Air Force base near Victorville--are serving as examples to county planners, Ellis said.

A new airport at Norton “remains a very large weed patch” that is $40 million in the red, and the organization behind the new airport at George “is just now getting its act together,” he said. Both facilities were hampered by arguments over who would develop the property and what kind of airport should emerge.

While El Toro supporters worry that the planning process is fraught with missteps and delays, airport foes see it as the county’s effort to build an airport at all costs, regardless of opposition from nearby residents.

Along the way, airport foes are pledging to challenge every unfavorable decision and to file lawsuits, if necessary. But supporters of the El Toro airport are undaunted.

“It took 17 years to get the San Joaquin Hills toll road built, and there were people fighting it at every turn,” Ellis said. “This will get done.”