It’s Democratic if Voters Say It Is

* In her letter July 25, is Jean Askham, president of the League of Women Voters of Orange County, trying to convince North County that a vote against the El Toro airport would be a vote against democracy?

She seems to think a “simple majority” vote to create a two-thirds approval [required for future votes] is some antidemocratic maneuver.

But all citizens, no matter what the issue, are allowed to frame their initiatives to include a two-thirds voter approval for an issue.

To vote by simple majority for [a future] two-thirds voter approval for an issue is part of a long-standing and respected tradition. Remember Proposition 13?

The Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative, in which all 100,000-plus signatures were gathered by volunteers, is not “destructive” but democracy in action, in its best spirit, exactly as our founding fathers would have envisioned.

Askham seems more afraid of the voters and our power than she does of the entrenched power of county supervisors, who are allowed to vote about communities in which they don’t live, with no accountability to the citizens of those cities, and whose members have in some cases been assisted into office by generous donations from and connections to developers and builders.

Askham’s argument and the arguments of her organization are esoteric. The “real world” is the damage and harm [an airport] will do to our community, to children trying to study and play, real estate values, families’ loss of life savings, and the individual becoming increasingly diminished and outshouted by corporate interests--in this case the deafening noise of an international airport.

MELISSA SANDRA

LEVINE

Irvine