Who Really Cares About El Toro?

In the continuing battle on the minds and hearts of the citizens of Orange County about the future of the former Marines Base at El Toro, the question often arises: Who cares?

Last year, this site analyzed letters submitted to the Times Orange County for the years 1993 - 1997, and found that half of the letters promoting the airport came from one city - Newport Beach. In addition, twice as many letters opposing the airport were published compared to the ones favoring it, and that most came from the impacted communities.

This study continued for 1998, looking at letters published at both the Times Orange County and the Orange County Register.  Both newspapers published a similar number of letters with a similar distribution as follows:
 
Letters to Editors - 1998 LA Times OC Register
Total letters on El Toro 221 199
Pro-airport 68 53
Against the airport 153 146

Of the letters promoting the airport, Newport Beach, Costa Mesa and Anaheim accounted for 68 letters, more than half.

Letters opposing the airport came from the most impacted cities - Irvine, Lake Forest, Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel, Mission Viejo and the unincorporated areas under the flight path of Runway 7 - for a total of 238 letters.  There were also 25 letters from citizens in Central and North county who would not be impacted by the proposed airport.

Citizens of six cities are apparently not bothered enough by the reuse of El Toro to get letters published.  They include the cities of Buena Park, Placentia, Seal Beach and Stanton, whose leaders, in an opposing trend, voted for their cities to join the pro-airport group OCRAA.

Following are the data:

El Toro Airport Proponents:
Aliso Viejo 4
Anaheim 13
Brea 2
Costa Mesa 18
Cypress 1
Fullerton 1
Garden Grove 1
Huntington Beach 4
Irvine 7
Laguna Hills 3
Los Alamitos 3
Newport Beach 38
Orange 4
Santa Ana 9
Santa Ana Heights 2
Tustin 7
Westminster 3
Yorba Linda 1
Total 121

El Toro Airport Opponents:
Aliso Viejo 18
Costa Mesa 3
Coto de Casa 5
Dana Point 15
Foothill Ranch 1
Garden Grove 2
Huntington Beach 4
Irvine 64
La Habra 1
Laguna Beach 9
Laguna Hills 41
Laguna Niguel 37
Lake Forest 42
Mission Viejo 24
Newport Beach 2
Orange 5
Portola Hills 2
Rancho S. Margarita 2
San Clemente 2
San Juan Capistrano 3
Santa Ana 6
Trabuco Canyon 4
Tustin 6
Villa Park 1
Total 299

Published July 23, 1999

PREVIOUS REPORT- published in 1998

A study, conducted by Hanna Hill, an Irvine research consultant, sheds new light on a heated debate over who really cares about El Toro Airport.

El Toro airport opponents argue that the only passionate support for a commercial airport at the Marine base comes from residents of Newport Beach. They reason that Newporters want El Toro as a way to get the jet noise from John Wayne Airport out of their community and into someone else’s backyard.

Airport proponents say that it’s not just Newport Beach but most of the county that wants a new airport.

The study, initiated by, and published on the El Toro Airport Website, (http://www.eltoroairport.org ) may help to settle the question. The study presumes that most letters to the editors of newspapers are written by people who care a lot about an issue. The methodology required a computer search and then a reading of all letters on El Toro published in the Los Angeles Time Orange County edition, since 1993. The data then was classified by the letter writer’s position on an airport and where he or she lived.

The study identified 144 letters favoring an El Toro airport. Almost half, 71 letters, originated in Newport Beach. Costa Mesa, which adjoins Newport and is close to the John Wayne takeoff path came in second with another 20 letters. The remaining 53 pro-El Toro airport letters were spread over 19 cities.

The results are dramatic since half of all the pro-El Toro airport letters came from one city, Newport Beach, which contains less than 3 percent of Orange County’s population. Leonard Kranser, Website Editor called it “a classic case of the tail wagging the dog”. “One city is driving a campaign, for it’s benefit, that is costing all county taxpayers.”

Anti-airport letters were similarly scrutinized. There were 336 of these, more than twice as many as there were favoring the airport. The largest numbers came from Laguna Hills, Irvine and Laguna Niguel, cities right under the proposed flight paths. However, the “grass roots” opposition was less concentrated and came from more than two-thirds of the cities throughout the county. Residents of 32 cities and unincorporated communities felt strongly enough to write letters as part of the people’s movement against an airport.

The authors of the study concluded that relatively few county residents, outside of the area around John Wayne, really show much passion for an El Toro Airport. This finding is reflected in the annual UCI Opinion Poll of county residents, which shows softening support for the El Toro airport project.

Publication of these results will probably influence future letter writing campaigns. The City of Newport Beach has hired Government Solutions, a professional consulting firm to write letters, and the consultants are expected to seek signatures for these letters from individuals residing outside of Newport Beach.

The study methodology was as follows: The LA Times Orange County edition archive is available on CD ROM. The archive was searched by year, beginning January 1, 1993, for Letters to the Editor. Then all letters were searched for the keywords “El Toro” and “airport”. Each resultant letter was read and those that were concerned primarily with other issues, e.g. The Marine Corps air show at El Toro, were excluded. Finally, each letter was classified as pro- or anti- airport and tabulated by the author’s published home town. The summary data is available at http://www.eltoroairport.org/issues/edletters.html

STUDY DATA

January 1, 1993 - November 5, 1997


 
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