Two Words for Mayor: Take Off!

It’s official. The suspense is over. Nothing left to do now but announce the ribbon-cutting.

Los Angeles is officially in favor of an international airport for Orange County. And, oh, by the way, it wonders if we could throw in a couple jails, a couple landfills, a homeless shelter and a nuclear power plant. And the Dodgers would like the Angels to give Mo Vaughn back to the Red Sox and quit wasting money on good ballplayers.

L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan came to Irvine this week and bit the bullet. After what must have been an anguishing process, abetted by blowing in his ear from George Argyros, Riordan said Orange County simply must build an international airport at the El Toro Marine base site.

We should support the airport, the mayor said, because it will help the poor and is the morally proper thing to do.

I’m no backwater local honk (unless it suits my purposes), but if we wanted advice from a self-serving, glad-handing mayor, we wouldn’t need to go to L.A. for one. It just so happens we have 31 of them right here.

Anyway, Riordan, suddenly sounding like Jesse Jackson, says it isn’t right that a place like Orange County proclaim, “We have ours,” and then turn its back on much-needed projects that could benefit the poor.

Obviously, the man from Los Angeles knows very little about Orange County. “We Have Ours (And We’re Not Giving It Back)” is the official county motto.

Riordan is probably a swell guy, despite saying in June that Orange County “is the most boring place in the country.” Still, his entry into the El Toro airport issue is puzzling in that his opinion about our affairs is the quintessential one hand clapping.

It makes no sound.

His opinion is not one Orange Countians especially care about (unless, of course, he had opposed the El Toro airport), so all he could do by endorsing it was ruffle feathers. Perhaps he thought pushing publicly for an enlarged Orange County airport might, just might, ease pressure in Los Angeles, where some factions don’t want LAX expanded as much as he does.

We can’t knock Riordan for having an opinion and, technically, it’s not even illegal for a Los Angeles mayor to visit Orange County, but did he have to lay a guilt trip on us? Did we ne’er-do-wells need the mayor from The Big City to tell us we’re morally off track if we don’t support an airport?

I’ve heard George Argyros argue forcefully for the airport, but not in moralistic terms. At least, not with a straight face. Good thing; Argyros’ desire to have a new airport at El Toro is hardly rooted in the ethics of the matter, unless he considers it righteous to keep John Wayne Airport in his town of Newport Beach from expanding.

But the Rev. Riordan, apparently playing to the bleeding-heart liberal crowd here in Orange County (uh, Mr. Mayor . . . ), has no such trepidation.

His morality thesis? At first, I thought he meant even poor people have a right to fly internationally. But he means that the jobs generated by an airport project will provide jobs for the masses.

The mayor said, “Morally, we owe everybody the right to be part of the middle class, to be part of the American dream. The ultimate goal is not increasing the capacity of our airports. The ultimate goal is creating quality jobs.”

I just made a note to myself to see what Los Angeles has done, especially in its poorer sections, to keep people working. If that effort is exemplary, I might take Riordan’s Orange County comments with more than a grain of salt.

What I’ve seen in the bleaker parts of L.A., however, are empty lots, vacant stores and hopeless people.

A mayor has every right to morally challenge a place to help the poor.

In Riordan’s case, the name of that place is Los Angeles.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers can reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to [email protected].