Agran-dizing Again

Emperor Agran of the People's Republic of Irvine had the gall to publish a letter in the Daily Pilot a pitch for federal porkulus funds for his Great Pork. Remember all the LIES.....er promises that this so called Great Pork would be TAX FREE????

Agran and his merry band of socialist thugs spent over a decade spreading fear, lies, hate, class envy, and filth against the already EXISTING El Toro International Airport.

If airports are so evil, why has the honorable Mr. Agran not uttered a peep about John Wayne which abuts Irvine? Why has the honorable Mr. Agran PERMITTED thousands upon thousands of housing units to be constructed oh so very near John Wayne. Aren't airports supposed to be "evil"?

That is because THE COUNTY not Irvine has control of the airport property. Therefore, the honorable Mr. Agran had to spend all these years and millions of taxpayers dollars demonizing El Toro International Airport so that he and his cronies could seize control of a $10 billion taxpayer asset.

Apparently his Great Pork ain't working out so well and is incredibly dependent upon a massive infusion of PUBLIC MONEY for the most minimal of park jewelry such as an ugly orange balloon on all of 30 acres. That is WHAT $100 million gets you!

Most of that money has been spent so far has been dedicated to talking about, writing about, advertising, exaggerating, and hyping up a virtually NON-EXISTANT park. Spew enough propoganda about it often enough, and gullible people start to believe it will become a park. The fact is 4 years after Irvine seized El Toro, there is very little progress to date. Lennar is not exactly on the road to recovery. This park is a mirage and a sham.

On the other hand, I see runways, hangars, a train station, and great freeway access. El Toro has been and continues to be the perfect site for an international airport for the flying public. (John Wayne should serve private and charter aircraft.)

Rather than grovel for money in a paper that serves the area where the Great Pork was thoroughly rejected. Why doesn't Mr. Agran simply pick up the phone and call LAWA and lease them the land for an airport. LAWA would bank roll his billion dollar park. All he has to do is ask.

In the meantime, the honorable Mr. Agran should refrain from using reprehensible socialist tactics to redistribute the wealth for what has been proven to be an utterly frivolous excuse for a "park". Wealth is created by entrepreneurs and economic engines such as El Toro, not by litigation and confiscation.




COMMUNITY COMMENTARY:
Great Park would be great opportunity for revenue
By Larry Agran
Updated: Wednesday, March 25, 2009 8:49 PM PDT

President Obama’s visit to Southern California was an excellent opportunity for city leaders to personally plead their case for funding of community and recreational facilities, which desperately need a portion of the stimulus dollars.

Unfortunately, city parks are not getting the attention they deserve. Although monies for national park improvements have been earmarked for the National Park Service, there is no money specifically designated for our metropolitan parks.

While tall skyscrapers, massive retail centers and new residential communities may garner more public attention and publicity, the fact is, parks matter.

Obama launched his administration with the boldest economic recovery program seen in America since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.

But where is the funding for our metropolitan parks? In Orange County, we are beginning development of the Orange County Great Park. The Great Park is the centerpiece of the redevelopment of the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. To fully understand the potential economic impacts the Great Park holds for Orange County and Southern California, Economic Research Associates (ERA) conducted an analysis of the public and private development in and around the park in the next 12 years.

The study reports that over the next 12 months alone, planning, construction and other private and public activity associated with building the Great Park could result in hundreds of jobs this summer, and thousands of jobs in the near-term, increasing to 31,532 jobs in 2020. Much of the preliminary work is “shovel ready.”

These projects include a “solar farm” providing renewable energy to the park and surrounding communities, a natural water treatment system with regional benefits to water quality, and a multimodal transit system using alternative fuel vehicles within the park and connecting to Amtrak and Metrolink service at the nearby Irvine Transportation Center.

The total dollar value of development and related activity projected is $23.9 billion with the average annual contribution to the regional GRP at $2.2 billion. Sales, property and income tax generated within the park and adjacent residential and commercial areas could amount to $123.4 million in 2020.

I am confident that many of the Great Park’s “green projects” will qualify for federal stimulus dollars in the areas of transit, transportation, renewable energy production and water quality improvement. National, state and local government officials nation- wide should take a close look at metropolitan parks as a logical place to invest federal stimulus dollars.
________________________________________


LARRY AGRAN is the mayor pro tem of Irvine and serves as chair of the Orange County Great Park Corporation.

No more talking about El Toro International Airport

I learned that having a blog where people talk about El Toro International Airport sure makes a lot of people upset and causes heartburn, even though it has been around for several decades.

Judging by all the acrimonious posts on this blog shows we have a very divided county. I was sure hoping that we could all have a healthy happy discussion about El Toro International Airport without all these personal attacks going on. I am disappointed with the lack of mature discourse found amongst our posters who either like airports or dislike airports.

Then it dawned on me that reminding some people that the Great Park is failing only makes them very upset. They do not like to be made aware of that fact, or that the dreaded runways are still intact. Some people really do have their heart set on the park and do not want to hear any bad news about it. They only want their news source to be from Irvine itself.

Some people really do believe Irvine is going to deliver on its promise for tax free world class park. So why should I disappoint them anymore. I say, let them believe in the Great Park. I will no longer ruin their happiness. I will let them envision lots of beautiful smiling happy people with lots of pretty balloons and endless entertainment. Talking about an airport only makes them upset and is a distraction from their eager anticipation of the Great Park. Like John Lennon said "Imagine".

It takes a pig to deliver the pork

After many tries, the Great Pork finally got some tax dollars. Irvine made this shameless grab for federal money despite the incessant lies they told during the infamous Great Pork campaign that NO TAXES would be required! North County did not buy that load of pig crap and soundly rejected Measure W. But the South County NIMBYs who were brainwashed and traumatized by irrational fear of El Toro fell for the Irvine lies and passed Measure W during a low turnout election.

The hangar that is being "refurbished" with this nearly half million in federal pork is to "honor aviation history" no less. Irvine is the same city that spent millions of dollars convincing the public that airports, airplanes, The Navy, The Marine Corps, pilots, baggage handlers, cargo, passengers, Newport Beach, North County, L.A., and anyone who even thinks about aviation is EVIL! Oh the irony!

After Irvine was rejected twice at the ballot box to use state taxdollars for their utterly frivolous budget busting great pork, Comrad Barbie Boxer came to the rescue for Comrad Agran and delivered some pork. In addition, while Boxer visited El Toro she put her ignorance on public display about the military, by calling El Toro an "Air Force Base".

But being the commie she is, she hates the military and any trace of it. She also has no respect the for businesses that make this country prosperous. It is them, NOT the wealth redistributing government bureaucrats that make America great. Then Comrad Boxer had the gall in 2004 to challenge the election results of George W. Bush who was the rightful winner. She is an embarrassment to our fine state. No wonder why she and Agran are political soul mates.

In the future, Irvine might not get so lucky with federal pork from the taxpayers. A big thanks is due to Oklahoma Senator Coburn for exposing the great pork to the entire nation for the scam that it is. Then as long as the Demorats keep racking up deficits and raising taxes on the real wealth producers and job creators of this country, they will surely be voted out next election. The stock market has not exactly improved since they gained control of Washington D.C.

Timidity does not get us very far in Orange County.

Take a look at this great ad by Cessna. They encourage business executives to be bold. These are the people who produce wealth and create jobs in the first place. Their time is valuable and they do not have time to use public transit aircraft and share limited runway space and airspace, most especially in Orange County.

I have always stated that John Wayne should be for private aircraft to primarily serve the business community while El Toro International Airport would serve the flying public and cargo. So lets put to rest the tired old conspiracy theory incessantly repeated by brainwashed NIMBYs that wealthy Newport Beach special interests just want to move the noise 7 miles down the road.

The fact is, we do not want to have our homes and businesses condemned here to enlarge the size of John Wayne which rests on a mere 500 acres. It does not take a PhD in economics to figure out that it is far more expensive to buy out a prestigious area like Newport Beach then it would be to simply turn on the lights at the 4700 acre El Toro Airport. Besides, the Great Pork is not making much progress and will not anytime soon due to reliance on Lennar and the public trough which is running dry.

Most of those so bitterly opposed to El Toro hate Newport Beach far more than they love their own children. The class warfare activist NIMBYs who are anti business radical environmentalist wealth confiscators, have no idea how to run a business. They got deep discounts on their homes because of the military jets and many of which were financed by sub prime loans, designed for people who have no business owning a home in the first place.

These anti-business radicals sign the back of a check far more often than they sign the front of a check. They do not know about wealth being produced. They only know about socialist redistribution and class warfare against those who provide the jobs.

If the NIMBYs wanted a better future for their children they would support economic engines like El Toro which would pump billions into the economy and create jobs. The Great Pork may get some porkulus from the federal government. But that will only aid a select few on the park board and will not help the economy and the children of the uninformed NIMBYs who suffer from a decade plus of Agran led brainwashing.

Then we have the Bush tax cuts which could expire thanks to Obama's not so centrist economic policies. This will mean fewer, not more jobs will be created. Should the top tax rate actually increase from 35% to 39.6% this will be another $46,000 in punitive taxes for every million dollars of wealth created.

This same $46,000 could provide a job for someone who would spend money and truly stimulate the local economy. Otherwise, by the time the government gets done confiscating and redistributing the wealth, there is little left that reaches the local level. Dollar for dollar, businesses create more jobs than government does. In addition private sector jobs are based on supply and demand not make work jobs to create more Democrats.

The Laguna Beach City Council is clueless again!

First, the city of Laguna Beach was snookered by the city of Irvine into wasting millions of tax dollars into opposing El Toro. Irvine lied to them and tricked them into thinking that jets from El Toro would go over their city, which they would not.

However, once John Wayne flights increased, there were howls of protest out of Laguna Beach about this. What poetic justice that was! You see folks, flights from John Wayne actually do go over Laguna Beach! Imagine that! Today, Irvine has a worthless great pork that provides very little economic stimulus, unlike an airport would, and is of no benefit to the clueless denizens of Laguna Beach.

Now Laguna Beach is clueless again, and wants to go against the will of California voters and overturn proposition 8, which bans gay marriage. It is well known that Laguna Beach is full of liberals and those who practice alternative lifestyles. I really don't care, so long as they keep it to themselves and away from Newport Beach. Heck they can open more gay bars for all I care. But they should not go around trying to redefine marriage, which is a centuries long tradition between a man and a woman. The majority of the state does not share Laguna Beach's "values".

Nyre is on Fire! Keep them letters coming!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am finally back from a long vacation where I traveled on my yacht. I did not have regular access to the internet. Thus, this blog was not maintained regularly. But judging by the participation on here by our audience, El Toro is alive and well in the hearts and minds of everybody. If it was really dead as the NIMBYs so wrongly claim, they would not be on here incessantly spreading more lies and class warfare. Economic necessity along with the failure of the great pork dictates that the re-opening of El Toro International Airport is only a matter of time. Resistance is futile.

Anyhow, here is a great letter that appeared in the Daily Pilot by the great Donald Nyre reminding Daily Pilot readers of the need for El Toro. As a traveling businessman, I do not feel that John Wayne should die on the vine entirely, and should remain open for private aircraft, while the flying public makes use of the much larger El Toro facilities. 10,000 foot runways and a 4700 acre base are better suited for such purposes.

As one whose time is valuable, I prefer to fly privately and not be forced to share the runways and airspace with the masses. I also would not be willing to share Newport Harbor with commercial passenger ships. It is nice to have my own boat space to come and go as I please. One day John Wayne Airport will also be that way.



Here’s an idea: Let JWA die on the vine

Local activists’ eloquent pleas for a regional solution to air traffic demand wisely point out that John Wayne Airport already is the second largest provider of service in the Los Angeles area behind LAX, (“Better transportation solution to airport woes,” Jan. 21.)

They point out that 30% of users are vacationers, and if better surface transportation were available, people could land at some airport out in the sticks and ride the train to their destinations.

Ontario Airport ranks high on the list of airports out in the sticks that does not attract customers, because it does not have a train connecting the airport to tourist destinations of Anaheim and Newport Beach. As long as there is LAX or JWA, passengers will continue to use them, with, or without, a train.

Los Angeles opened Ontario as a reliever airport when LAX is fogged in.

It was not intended to be a destination airport. Similarly, I have been denied landing at San Diego’s Lindbergh Field and had to land at Ontario. Of course we all hated it because we wanted to land in San Diego.

By contrast to airports out in the sticks, Los Angeles has its eye on the closed El Toro International Airport, which is in an area with a proven track record for attracting passengers. I believe a regional solution to our air transportation problem is to open El Toro International Airport, let Los Angeles run it, and let dinky John Wayne Airport die on the vine.

DONALD NYRE

Newport Beach

LAWA Money Could Clean up El Toro!

The Register featured an article about the toxic waste at El Toro and gave mention to two great websites in the process.
www.eltoronow.com and www.salem-news.com
This will surely generate lots of publicity about why a Great Pork is the least acceptable use of a former military airport. During the previous El Toro debates, Emperor Agran and his merry band of NIMBYs were saying the land was "too toxic" for an airport.....but would like us to believe it is clean enough for park and residential uses. PLEASE!

Los Angeles World Airports has previously offered the Navy 2 billion dollars to lease El Toro and 300 million to the Navy to clean it up. Instead the property was sold to Lennar for pennies on the dollar and they are still bleeding money like crazy. The fact is the real estate market has a glut of housing, especially here in Orange County. Adding even more houses will not dig Lennar out of its predicament.

However, selling or leasing the El Toro property to Los Angeles World Airport Authority will reverse Lennar's downward slide. We are talking about a potential multi billion dollar stimulus package from Los Angeles. Don't look for this kind of help from the Obama administration and Washington D.C. as Orange County is Republican Country!

Re-opening El Toro International Airport will get the base cleaned up, create 90,000 jobs, result in shorter commutes, cheaper fares, and take cargo trucks off the road to LAX. There would even be plenty of land for Larry Agran to finally realize his dream of a Great Park.

In addition, there will be an increase in economic activity and these new jobs will create more demand for housing and raise everyone's property values. Otherwise, adding thousands of new homes on a superfund site no less without an accompanying economic catalyst like an airport will further retard local economic growth.