Poll Reveals Confusion Over Airport Initiative

A new UC Irvine poll shows that a March ballot initiative that could scuttle plans for an airport at El Toro has managed to confuse voters on both sides.

The UC Irvine poll shows that support for the measure is almost evenly split, 48% in favor to 46% against, in otherwise fervently anti-airport south Orange County, where roughly two-thirds of the voters have traditionally opposed the airport.

Yet when poll participants were told in a follow-up question that passage of the initiative could stop the county’s plans for an international airport at the closed Marine base, many switched their positions and the results reverted to the standard split: 61% in favor of the measure, 34% against.

“It shows there is ambivalence and confusion about [the initiative], especially in south county,” said Cheryl Katz, co-director of UC Irvine’s Orange County Annual Survey.

The March ballot measure would require approval by two-thirds of the voters before county officials could build or expand airports, jails within half a mile of homes of hazardous-waste landfills. The initiative, written by south county cities, is intended to force a third vote on the county’s plans for El Toro, and to stop county supervisors from expanding the James A. Musick Jail in Lake Forest.

Supporters and opponents of the proposed airport said the poll shows they have a lot of work to do to get their message across clearly to voters.

In fact, the confusion also appears to have spread to north county voters, who traditionally have supported an airport at El Toro: 51% voiced approval of the measure and 39% opposed it until they were told of its impact. Then they too reverted to the standard split, with support for the initiative dropping to 41%.