About 9.85 million passengers used the airport from April 2007 to March 2008 — about 500,000 fewer than the cap of 10.3 million established in 2003. That number is up from the 9.76 million passengers identified in the airport’s 2006-07 figures.
In spite of the incremental growth, airport officials estimate the facility could manage only 10 million passengers a year before passenger services were adversely affected.
Activists with AirFair, a community group opposed to expanding the airport’s growth beyond existing agreements, said the numbers did not surprise them.
“For an airport in an affluent community, we can only expect growth,” Nancy Alston said. “While we haven’t grown to the absolute maximum, that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t hit those levels sometime in 2008.”
A spokeswoman for the airport says there are no plans to exceed 10 million passengers this year.
NEWPORT BEACH
Annex bid voted down; Moorlach blamed for blow
County officials rejected the pleas of residents of the unincorporated South of Mesa Drive neighborhood to extend an application that would allow the neighborhood and nearby Santa Ana Country Club to be annexed by Newport Beach.
The Orange County Local Agency Formation Commission, which presides over annexations, voted down the extension, 6-1, Wednesday.
The residents needed a tax-sharing agreement from the Orange County Board of Supervisors to move forward, and some blame County Board Chairman John Moorlach for blocking the board from voting on the agreement.
Moorlach, a longtime Costa Mesa resident, has been outspoken in his belief that Costa Mesa has more of a right to the land than Newport Beach.
COSTA MESA
Trailer park residents fear increasing rent rates
A rent hike at Costa Mesa’s Anchor Trailer Park will prompt many to leave their neighborhood, residents said.
