1-21-05 The Agua Dulce Civic Association met on 1-20-05. Their meetings usually turn out 10 to 12 people, but at least 75 people attended because the airport was the issue. Joanne Swanson stated that she has received 183 return survey postcards with 56.8% (104) of the people responding supporting the closure of the airport.
There was some question as to whom these surveys were sent, and Joann was less than forthcoming, except that she said it didn’t go to just Civic Association members. No copy of the survey was made public.
The results were clearly not to Swanson’s liking. A number of “close the airport supporters”, such as Tana Lampton, stated that she did not get a survey and she has been a member of the Civic Association for 24 years.
The Civic Association then refused to follow the results of their survey, which were to close the airport. As most people do when they don’t like the answer, they ask a slightly different question to get a different answer, by sending another survey, this time to Civic Association members only.
As all of us know, the language of the survey tends to influence the result of the survey. If Swanson claims that her deal is the best for the community she will attempt to craft the survey to get that result. With only a pro-argument in the new survey and no opposition to her “deal with the airport” and no one promoting closure of the airport, then her survey is rigged and the results are biased.
It seems that neither the Civic Association nor the Agua Dulce Town Council are willing to give the opposition, that believes closing the airport is the right thing to do, equal time to make a presentation.
This simply tries to lock in the secret negotiations as the public position and accept these self-appointed “leaders” as arbiters of your lifestyles and property values they intend to give away to the airport.