REAL ESTATE

That was Tuesday. On Wednesday, the Outreach program held a rally in Newport Beach and drew an audience of more than 300, mainly people who work in the building and real estate industry.

The gloves came off, and the purpose of the rally--to drum up opposition to the slow-growth initiative--was made clear.

As part of the program, a video illustrating the contributions the building industry has made to the county was shown.

That those contributions aren’t being recognized is one of the concerns of the Outreach program. “We’re getting worse press than at any time in history,” Siani had said at the previous day’s press conference.

So far, of about 100,000 people in the county whose jobs are directly or indirectly linked with development, the Outreach program has identified 11,000 and entered their names on a master mailing list, Siani said.

Developer Tony Moiso, president of the Santa Margarita Co., accused proponents of the slow-growth initiative at the rally of not caring “about finding any traffic solution,” but one audience member said he really didn’t see the need for creating an us-against-them atmosphere.

“I don’t think there’s a good guy or bad guy in this,” said Glen Freyermuth, contracts manager for Anden, a residential builder. “I think the public possibly doesn’t understand that we’re providing a necessary resource.”