SCAG just got the last laugh on Irvine as they prevailed in California Supreme Court that Irvine MUST build 35,000 "low income" housing units. Those Projects will sure look lovely from the orange balloon. Irvine has exhausted all appeals and there is not a damn thing they can do to get out of it. Well.......there is one thing. They could always swallow their pride, pick up the phone and accept L.A.'s previous offer to lease El Toro International Airport for TWO BILION DOLLARS! Unless Larry Agran can control that money personally, he will continue to remain uninterested. Especially when he has his own personal gravy train with the Great Pork.
Larry Agran does not care that Irvine will become a ghetto. So long as he has his gravy train. After all, he has pushed for low income housing in the past and now he has got it. Plus Laguna Beach just approved of a parking lot for the homeless to congregate. These cities are more friendly to gay marriage, and low income slackers than economic engines like the airport which would bring jobs and prosperity. Would you rather have thousands of new jobs in your city or thousands of new homeless? Apparently the illustrious leaders of those cities favor the latter.
If one thought that Irvine and neighboring cities were already insanely jealous of Newport Beach because of the gap in property values, that gap will get even wider as a flood of low income housing will further depress home values. That would not be happening if they had supported keeping El Toro International Airport. There would not be nearly 15,000 acres of buffer zone available for (undesirable) residential development. If the airport were kept open this would create demand for the existing glut of housing and instantly increase property values.
The way for south county cities to achieve parity with Newport Beach is not to hate us and hope to sink us down to their level. The way to keep pace with us is find ways to improve one's own city, create a healthy business climate and aspire to reach our level. In fact, there was an article about Laguna Niguel being very alarmed about the closure of businesses. Just imagine if tourists from El Toro were visiting Laguna Niguel and the airport was hiring lots of subcontractors from that city. Killing the Golden Goose that is El Toro not only stops it from producing golden eggs for the community, the corpse also leaves a stench. Hence, we have projects and homeless growth instead of economic growth.
14 comments:
It's interesting that the picture that opens your post looks like it might have been taken in the vicinity of any medium or large airport in the United States. The economic engine you mention brings entrepreneurs of all types, many of whom one wouldn't want in their neighborhood.
It's hard to comment on such an eloquent essay about the future of Irvine with its third world ghetto, no jobs and hoards of homeless smelling up the place. Larry Agran never believed his own anti-airport rhetoric. So the great airport, run by LAWA, can be a cash cow and gravy for power and programs. Turn on the lights, Vernon. That foul mouthed Lone Nimby will have a heart attack.
1035 completely misses the point of Vernon's photograph depicting the future of Irvine with SCAG's affordable housing mandate. Irvine's only answer to this mandate, now that it has lost in courts, is to open El Toro International Airport which will bring untold prosperity to this city. Then, finally, and once and for all, Irvine's property values will rise up and overtake Newport Beach. That's a tall order for Irvine, built on a polluted swamp, but everybody must chip in and do their part to make the Great Park Airpark (El Toro International Airport) a success.
1035, I love El Toro International Airport. Those jumbo jet runways are ready for jumbo jets. When it opens John Wayne Airport and Long Beach Airport will have to stop using El Toro airspace. It's back to the good old days, except civilian airplanes are quiet. Nobody, absolutely nobody, is in the noise zone of El Toro International Airport. Proposed Great Park construction is compatible with the airport. Park planners are pandering to El Toro International Airport. Turn on the lights, Vernon. Forest Lawn will drive the final nail into the ooffin.
Lake Forest is suffering third world status until El Toro International Airport opens, (Register 10-27-09.) It has sued and won to close a day spa with all kinds of illegal activity going on. The people of Lake Forest deserve to see their city prosper and grow with jobs provided by the airport. Turn on the lights, Vernon. We'll save Lake Forest from Lone Nimby.
Donald Nyre strikes again:
Sounding Off:
JWA problems should be top priority
By Donald Nyre
Updated: Friday, October 23, 2009 10:19 PM PDT
There is something decidedly disquieting about Joe Bell’s The Bell Curve (“Airport’s change for the worse,” Oct 15).
He calls for a goal to stop expansion of John Wayne Airport while raising the level of discourse about permanent curfew and passenger caps.
His argument is based on a $652-million terminal improvement, but he ignores the land-locked nature of dinky John Wayne Airport which can not grow much even if caps were abandoned, and he assumes the airplanes always will depart over Newport Beach, a big mistake in the initial design of that airport. We need the settlement agreement, which makes life livable around here, but Bell’s call for constraint is a threat to our security.
I would like to see John Wayne Airport closed to commercial traffic.
Long established familiar patterns of doing things wrong do not give it the superficial sanction of being right. We have a bay and city to protect, two future quiet zones, and they’re not going away. Getting rid of the airplanes should be a high priority for Bell and Air Fair, to which he refers.
Here are just a few items of mitigation. Airport usage dropped from 10 million annual passengers to 9 million annual passengers during the last year and there is reason to believe this trend may continue.
The environmental movement reigns supreme, and passenger airplanes are gross polluters, so only international traffic can survive, but JWA’s runway is too short for that.
When John Wayne Airport was designed, it interfered with nearby El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, so the FAA had to overlap the five-mile circles centered over the airports.
Now El Toro is closed and its air space is available for John Wayne Airport which the FAA quickly adopted for Santa Ana wind conditions with northerly reverse flow departures and a sharp right turn over Irvine and out to the coast over open space.
JWA’s runway runs down hill to the north so heavier planes can take off that way.
So far Irvine has not complained. They’re still fighting El Toro International Airport and haven’t noticed that John Wayne Airport is a clear and present danger.
When the weather is calm, which it is 35% of the time, JWA flights can use the Santa Ana wind reverse flow departure over Irvine instead of over Newport Beach, and this should be a priority.
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DONALD NYRE lives in Newport Beach
Donald, it is because of you and people like you that people hate Newport Beach. Don't give us your crap how you are rich and we are jealous. There are plenty of wealthy people in South County. How did you acquire your wealth?
Your whole agenda of shoving El Toro up South County's ass had nothing to do with economic stimulus or job creation. It is all about SHUTTING DOWN JOHN WAYNE as you just admitted and moving your problem 7 miles down the road!
You also say airplanes are gross polluters. But you sure have no problem putting them over South County skies or having them take off over Irvine from John Wayne.
You are ignorant, self centered and live in your own world. You will NEVER see El Toro come back to life no matter how badly Larry Agran screws up the Great Park.
People in South County are on to your bullshit and won't put with your double standards on quality of life. Keep on whining about the need for more capacity and you will find plenty of support for gutting the settlement agreement which makes life livable for Newport Beach. You obviously don't care if life is livable for other communities you selfish egocentric evil man. Now stop writing letters. All they is do provoke people and make more people out there want to get on the John Wayne 24/7 bandwagon.
819, Newport Hater sure has John Wayne Airport figured out. Commercial traffic should be moved to El Toro International Airport just 7 miles down the road. They need the jobs down there, and nobody will be bothered by the airplanes.
819, you're my new hero!
608, the friend of my enemy is my enemy. Turn on the lights, Vernon. El Toro International Airport is a friend.
El Toro International Airport is my friend. Vernon Delights is my hero. Lone Nimby needs to go to finishing school.
So, 936 has a non existent airport as his friend and a non existent person as his hero. They have padded rooms for people like you. You can even finish school there, no need to take the little yellow bus any longer.
543, El Toro International Airport very much exists. Drive over and take a look. Vernon Delights very much exists. He just doesn't have a drivers license. With your attitude, Lone Nimby, you'll never get into finishing school. Turn on the lights, Vernon.
Not only does Vernon not have a drivers license, he doesn't have a social security number, a green card, nothing. That would make him either a terrorist or a fantasy. As far as El Toro International airport, I did drive over, didn't see one single airplane! That wold indicate that there is no airport.
Watch your own attitude, you won't even get a reservation at Coco's.
922, you must admit Vernon writes excellent articles in favor of El Toro International Airport. I don't snoop for personal information. Lone Nimby does that. Turn on the lights, Vernon. I'm ready for El Toro flights.
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