Supervisors Weigh Major PR Effort on El Toro Airport

SANTA ANA — The Board of Supervisors will consider proposals next week to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on an elaborate public information campaign on one of the county’s most divisive issues: the El Toro airport.

Two public relations firms have submitted the plans, which call for the county to hold community forums, build kiosks, publish brochures and newsletters, create videos and advertisements and use the Internet to better inform residents about plans to convert the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station into an international airport.

“Our goal is to provide accurate, timely and thorough information about the reuse plan,” said Courtney Wiercioch, the county’s assistant chief executive officer in charge of El Toro planning. “There is a tremendous amount of misinformation about the reuse plan.”

But some airport opponents immediately criticized the proposed effort, calling it a waste of taxpayer money and a sign that the airport plan is flawed.

“It’s absolutely absurd,” said Bill Kogerman, head of Taxpayers for Responsible Planning, the South County group leading the fight against a commercial airport at El Toro. “If this plan is so great, why do we have to spend all [this money] to get people to believe it. It should sell itself.”

When the supervisors voted to move forward with airport planning in December, they also directed county officials to create a program that “initiates and encourages meaningful participation” of residents who live near the base.

The county subsequently requested bids from firms interested in leading the information efforts. An evaluation team selected Laer Pearce & Associates and Nelson Communications Group as the finalists for the contract, which would run from July through December 1999.

In detailed proposals, both firms said the county could do a better job providing information about the airport planning process, and that county government needed to overcome credibility problems in the eyes of South County residents.

If the county agrees to proceed with all of the proposals outlined by the firms, the cost could range from $500,000 to $800,000 over the course of the 18-month contract.

But Wiercioch stressed that the costs and scope of the effort will be determined by the supervisors, and over the course of contract negotiations between county officials and the firm that is selected.

The firms’ listed costs don’t “reflect what the staff will recommend, and what the board will ultimately approve,” she added.

Board Chairman William G. Steiner said he will demand any public information effort not become a propaganda campaign.

“I’m not interested in a slick public relations effort or an effort to sell the airport,” Steiner said. “I’m interested in good, fair, accurate information.”

Airport supporters said they believe the public information campaign was justified.

One of the problems to date has been misperceptions about how an El Toro airport would affect surrounding communities, said Tom Naughton, president of the Newport Beach-based Airport Working Group, which supports an airport at El Toro as a way to maintain limits on aviation traffic at John Wayne Airport.

“There’s quite a bit of worth to getting the word out, displaying factual information for the public,” said Naughton. “Of course, if it’s not factual, that’s no better than not having anything at all.”