On 29-Oct-05 19:41, Tom wrote:
Great advice. (Free sarcasm included)

That letter, costly as you rightly point out, would be just as useless as
the AOPA response. Maybe your airport is in no danger of being erased from
the map, Mr. Gary, if it is, you will yourself see just how much help AOPA
will be.

AOPA's job may have never been to "show up at every community meeting in
which an airport is threatened," but I think Mr. Boyer is still flitting
about the USA in his fancy jet, bought with our dues. Maybe it would have
made more sense if he were "showing" up at these community meetings.

AOPA is a toothless useless organization when it comes to saving airports at
least.

I cannot help myself to recall, that I also called AOPA toothless!
I did so right after they dropped the federal law suit against
the city of Chicago, following their so bombastic verbal drums
regarding Meigs Field, and all the so horrible consequences to
the major and to the City.

Of course all this bashing of AOPA might have been our overreaction
to what was perfectly human: Indignation resulted in premature press
releases by AOPA, before the legal merit was analyzed. As much we
detest Mr. Daley and his action, we must give him that: He went
well prepared into his Meigs adventure. The late FAA fees and some
penalties does not hurt him at all. All is forgotten now, birds
nest on the deserted island and nobody "boycotts Chicago business,"
as AOPA intended to do...


The case of Oceanside is a bit different: Oceanside is a small
and relatively low key town. This town lived in the past from
military personal renting homes in the vicinity (OKB is squeezed
between Camp Pendelton and Palomar) and maybe its residents got
simply tired of all this "combat macho types" (just a literal
quote of a statement made to us by one of the local merchants!!)
Maybe the flying as such and the airport suffer from the same
wrong association?


A look on the LA sectional shows how important this airport is.
Somehow it happened so, that there is literally nowhere to land
along the shoreline between LA basin and San Diego, ...except
for the Oceanside. The airport in San Juan Capistrano was also
"bagged down" nights(!) many years ago. This lack of airports
there is very strange, considering the size of the flying
community here in CA!

Thomas




Tom

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
oups.com...

1) AOPA's job never has been to show up at every community meeting in
which an airport is threatened. When I had dinner with Phil Boyer a few
years ago we talked about this. They simply don't have the staff to do
that. What they do do is provide material and legal assistance to the
ASN volunteer.
2) A "stern letter" is actually a very impactful thing. Communities
read them. Its better than psycho people showing up at the meeting,
yelling, and complaining. I would suggest reading the book "How to win
friends and influence people" for more information on this technique.

If you still think AOPA is useless, go through the yellow pages and
call an attorney and ask them to draft the same type of impactful
"stern letter" and report back to us what it cost you.

-Robert