On Aug 8, 11:21 pm, Larry Dighera wrote:

In the case of Chandler, yes they did.
But this was a one-sided battle. There had been an election before,
and the anti-airport people were still very organized. Signs came out
en masse, and very quickly. They convinced people that "airport
noise hurts property values". Pure bunk, since most of the anti gang
lived near the airport and had very expensive property.

Are you familiar with what happened in the late '50s to property
values in upscale Morningside Park (a suburb of Inglewood, CA) when
the airlines started flying B707s in there? It completely changed the
neighborhood. But I see your point in this case.

No, I'm not.
In Chandler's case, the city had gone to quite a length to appease the
anti- crowd before the elections. They had passed ordinances against
any scheduled flights, etc. Essentially, the only reason we wanted to
extend the runway about 400' was to provide a safety measure, and so
that aircraft of the type already coming in would be able to take off
with full loads in the hot summer air.
But the anti-s kept talking about jets, jets, jets. The general
public must have thought we were opening up a military base for dead
diseased animals from Covance!
Chandler's longest runway is about 4800 feet. The anti-s were writing
letters telling people that there were going to be 747s and B52s
coming in. Those were the sane and sensible letters!!!

The real shame was the absolutely beautiful political acumen of the
anti-airport gang. The way this was run should be in a textbook--it
was pure classic stuff and highly effective. Too bad it was
dishonest.

I would be interested in hearing more about the specifics of their
strategy and how they managed to communicate their message publicly.

They were highly organized. In only a short time after the election
was announced, there were hundreds of signs "Jet noise lowers property
values"
There were letters to the editor on a nearly daily basis, and only a
few in favor of the airport. I sent several, but none got published.
I can't say whether the submitted letters were that one-sided, or
whether the papers were selective. I do know that you had to meet
certain requirements to get considered for publication. If your group
was organized, you would make sure that everyone knew what those
requirements were. Additionally, I could nearly pick the tone of the
letters based on their authors. One person would go hyperbolic with
the name calling against pro-airport people taking down anti-airport
signs. (Not bloody likely; anti-airport signs were everywhere--public
and private. I rarely saw a pro-airport sign except at certain
properties near the airport, where they were least likely to be
effective.) I can only guess that they had many meetings, and the
letter-writing was highly organized.

It didn't help that the city threw this into the election, and
basically sat out the election without supporting the proposal. This
just made things worse than not having had a proposal at all, since
the next time--if it occurs--will be that much more difficult.

That's 15 households that will complain about the noise the day they
move in--NEXT TO THE AIRPORT!!!!!

Did you attend the county/city planning commission hearings, and voice
your opposition to the development? I would think it reasonable to
require the developer to insert avigation easements in the deeds as a
condition of issuing the building permits.

I wanted to attend, but had a class.
There are "easements", but that's meaningless. All of the new
residents can still vote, protest, write letters, and complain. If
there is no airport, the easement means nothing. Actually, the
easement means nothing at all.

I think the battle is a longer one. Don't wait until an election to
try to tell the story. Over a few years, mount an effective campaign
that touts the benefits of the airport. We have to gain support long
before the contest.

How do you get the message out?
I'm not much of a PR guy. But the public has to be made aware,
consistently, of the importance of the airports. They have to be made
aware of the dishonesty of much of the anti-airport propaganda.
Instead of "Don't kill my airport" campaigns only when there is an
identified threat, we have to have "I love your airport" all the
time. The people who move next to an airport and then complain have
to be "outed" as the selfish, arrogant people they are, but it has to
be done with more class than that. We pilots don't mix well with the
general population; they don't see what we see--they only see us for a
few seconds, down low and noisy. And they think we are all rich,
because that's how the anti-s portray us. We're all wealthy
pilots!!! ( I maybe coulda been wealthy, but then I started wanting
to fly....)

Today, I went to rent an airplane for Saturday. My rental place
closed up; they are moving to another airport. They bailed on $10
million in investments. When the bond issue failed, the airport lost
$2 million in fed funds, so thats $12M and counting. I'd gring that
up to the editorial column, but the anti-s would count that as a
victory. One business down, half a dozen more to go. This makes it
harder for the airport to be "self-sustaining", which makes that
argument self-fulfilling.