Naming a New City: El Toro Evokes History While Lake Forest Flows From Vanity

I am a longtime resident of El Toro who is saddened and disheartened to think that a number of people who have moved to my hometown from who knows where now want to change the name.

You people know who you are; you’ve lived here maybe a couple of years at best and know nothing of the sleepy little town El Toro once was. Do you have any idea that El Toro dates back to the 1800s and has a history? No, I think that you think it just popped up out of nowhere as a planned community and a place to park your BMWs.

Do you realize that this area was once covered with orange groves? Did you know there used to be a little train station and country store where now sits an overpass? That Lake Forest Drive was once called Canada and was a quiet country road?

Of course not, because you had never even heard of El Toro at that time. I don’t know where you get your nerve moving into my hometown, the place I grew up, and thinking you can just change the name to increase your property value.

Why do you not want to be associated with the Marine base? Are you not the same people who have been driving around with yellow ribbons and flags on your cars? I would never dream of moving into your hometowns of Peoria, Duluth, or Toledo and changing the name. Have you no sense of tradition?

And are the people in the community of Lake Forest now going to allow the rest of us to use their lakes? No, we won’t even be allowed past the fences that barricade the man-made lakes. If I’m going to be living in a city called “Lake Forest,” I better be able to use the lakes for which the city is named.

I think it is a shame to push aside history and tradition in the name of “prestige” and “affluence.”

MARY LYNN PETRALIA, El Toro