Fed-Up Retiree Airs His Airport Data on Web

From his cliffside home overlooking the Pacific at Monarch Bay, Len Kranser frets over the possibility of jumbo jets taking off from a commercial airport at El Toro.

But more than fret, he seethes.

“It’s true that I live under the [proposed] flight path, but I’m 12 miles away from the runway,” says the 64-year-old retiree. “So I don’t anticipate that the airport will devastate my life, but . . .”

The “but” is one that opponents of the airport are voicing more and more frequently. As Kranser puts it: “I feel strongly about the process going on here in Orange County. The way this thing has been done bothers me very much.”

Kranser believes the powers that be are doing everything they can to see an airport built at El Toro when the Marine Corps Air Station closes in 1999, regardless of how if affects South County.

As a way of fighting back, the bookish, bespectacled man has developed a tool to aid the anti-airport effort and lash out against the establishment. Since October, he has been spending three hours a day putting up stories, graphics and hundreds of “factoids” on a World Wide Web site devoted exclusively to the airport issue.

By going to the Internet address, https://www.eltoroairport.org, browsers of the Web can find all sorts of information, albeit from a one-sided perspective.

“It’s objective in the sense that we do very little editorializing, but it’s certainly not a 50-50 presentation,” Kranser allows. “We make no pretense about that.”

He estimates that people are entering “the El Toro Airport Info Site” about 1,000 times daily, though some may be multiple users, and he says they are coming in from throughout the county. “My goal was to create a coalition of anti-airport groups. I saw the Web site as a platform on which they all could meet.”

Pro-airport forces have yet to launch a rival site, but say they envy Kranser’s approach. “It’s an ingenious way for the anti-airport crowd to spread information,” says airport proponent Timothy Cooley, a businessman. “They’re using technology very smartly.”

Kranser, the former chief executive of a small group of manufacturing companies, conceived the site at a meeting of Taxpayers for Responsible Planning, an anti-airport organization of which he is a member. The site was constructed by his partner in the venture, Dan Finch, a “cyberspace architect” with Googolplex Studios of Aliso Viejo. It pictures a jet taking off, complete with music and roaring sound effects.

Web browsers may explore a variety of subject areas--”latest news,” “be involved,” “issues” and “litigation”--each containing voluminous articles and graphics full of data.

For instance, Kranser prints dates, times and locations of what he considers important meetings. In the days ahead, the county’s Local Redevelopment Agency and citizens advisory committee, both of which deal with airport issues, have regular meetings scheduled--and on the county’s own Web site, one can find nary a mention of them.

“It’s as though the county doesn’t want people to attend,” Kranser says with a conspiratorial hush. “I wonder why.”

There also is news on the El Toro Web site from Seattle and Chicago, where anti-airport groups are fighting the expansion of airports with their own Web-site weaponry.

Finch handles the site’s look, feel and texture. Kranser is solely responsible for content. Among other things, he relies on newsletters, printing the full content of missives from such anti-airport groups as Project ‘99, Rally Against the Airport, the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority and Taxpayers for Responsible Planning.

He believes that cyberspace will increasingly be used as a way of driving home political viewpoints.

“The Internet provides a way of disseminating information that a newspaper just can’t match,” he says. “We routinely print hundreds of pages of material. Newspapers just aren’t geared to do that, nor would they want to. We print the full content of letters, Board of Supervisors’ resolutions, comments from the Airline Pilots Assn. . . . And all you have to do is just point and click.”

He says he can beat newspapers when it comes to spreading information quickly. When the Board of Supervisors body voted to move ahead with an aviation option at El Toro, Kranser had a story up in minutes, even though it was fast approaching 2 a.m. when the meeting concluded.

Kranser says the work is not labor-intensive for him. Most of the time, instead of typing, he uses the computer method of “downloading” data from one information bank into another. He retrieves information through e-mail or over the Web, or by people mailing him diskettes that he immediately loads, and just as quickly, posts. “It takes mere seconds.”

He contends the site has even produced its own share of scoops, such as the recent letter from Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) to county Planning Director Thomas B. Mathews, in which Cox said: “Taking the hugely valuable El Toro property off the local tax rolls forever--which is what constructing a public airport would mean--is fiscal irresponsibility defined.”

In recent weeks, Kranser has posed such questions as:

* What will happen to John Wayne Airport if an airport is built at El Toro? (One category on the Web site seeks to convince county residents that John Wayne inevitably will close.)

* Why not establish a high-speed rail line to March Air Force Base in Riverside, where community groups want a commercial airport built?

* Why not explore the idea of a commercial airport at Camp Pendleton, which could serve both San Diego and Orange counties?

“There are 100,000 computer users out there in Orange County,” Kranser says. “I just hope I can reach them . . . before it’s too late.”