County Approves P.R. Effort on Airport Plan

SANTA ANA — A divided Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to move forward with an elaborate and potentially pricey public information campaign on the divisive plan to convert the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station into a commercial airport.

The board action comes after a countywide telephone survey in April found that county officials lack credibility with the public on the El Toro issue. The survey, which polled 600 randomly selected residents, was made public Tuesday after its existence was disclosed at the supervisors’ weekly meeting.

Asked what source of information they trusted to deliver “reliable and accurate news” about El Toro, only 4% of the survey’s respondents mentioned elected officials, while 2% said airport officials. By comparison, 58% replied that they relied on “the media” for accurate information.

When asked where they would prefer to get their information, 11% listed airport officials and elected leaders, compared to 47% who listed the media.

County officials said the survey’s results underscored the need for an aggressive public information effort that would provide news about the planning process, as well as respond quickly to claims made by airport opponents.

“Those who oppose the project have it as a cornerstone of their strategy to discredit the county position,” said Courtney Wiercioch, the assistant chief executive officer in charge of El Toro planning.

“Because we can’t respond [due to] a lack of resources, it’s been a one-sided discussion,” she said. “The county is losing the battle because it doesn’t have the resources to respond.”

But critics, including many El Toro opponents, blasted the public relations proposal, calling it a waste of taxpayer money designed to “sell” an El Toro airport to skeptical South County residents.

“This is propaganda for the El Toro airport that we don’t want,” said Laguna Niguel Councilman Eddie Rose.

Supervisor Thomas W. Wilson, an airport opponent, said the preliminary proposals submitted by two public relations firms picked by a county committee “went beyond the realm of objectivity to the point where strategy for dispensing pro-airport information, including the use of focus groups, was highlighted.”

“What we needed was a way to disseminate facts about what the airport reuse means, not an expensive propaganda machine designed to manipulate public opinion,” Wilson said in a statement.

Wilson had to leave Tuesday’s meeting early, so the board voted 3-1 in his absence to hire Nelson Communications Inc. to handle the campaign.

In its proposal, entitled “One County . . . One Future . . . El Toro,” Nelson Communications suggested a variety of ways of improving the county’s credibility, including holding focus groups, publishing brochures and newsletters, producing videos, holding community meetings, using the Internet and installing kiosks at public gatherings.

Nelson estimated that its hourly fees for professional work would range from $100 to $200, and that the costs of creating the public information program would be about $300,000 for the first year of the 18-month contract.

County staffers will now meet with Nelson to work out a detailed public information strategy and determine how much the project will cost. The resulting plan will then go back to the board for final approval.

“What [Nelson] did was simply make a proposal with a laundry list of options,” Wiercioch said. “We will have to whittle that down to what options we want and what a fair price for those option would be.”

While a board majority voted to go ahead with the plan, they demanded that the effort be reviewed after one year and urged El Toro planners to be frugal in their contract negotiations with Nelson.

“I think it’s important that we have information available to all sides equally,” said Supervisor Jim Silva. “But it is not an open pocketbook. We want to watch the money closely.”

Supervisor Todd Spitzer, who voted against the proposal, expressed concern over the results of the survey and said the county must work to restore its credibility with the public. But he questioned the logic of hiring a public relations firm now, when planning for El Toro is already at such an advanced stage.

“At this point, how would a public information firm do us any good at all?” he asked.