Flying Site Case Study #8
Seven years of dogged determination on the part of Joseph Martin, president of the Ventura County Regional Modeling Aeronautics Association (VCRMAA), have paid off. The following describes the efforts of Joe and the association in their successful bid to aquire a new flying site.
One day the club’s property was sold. On a typical weekday, a few members were at the site flying while
unknown to them, a cyclone fence was installed around the property fencing them in. It took several calls to people to get the gate open. A few months later, the flying site was bulldozed under.
Club president Rick Esler and the Joe Martin spent two years bouncing from one bureaucratic organization to another. They started with city officials who referred them to the City Parks and Recreation Department, which referred them the Federal Parks Department, where they were directed to the State Assemblyman, who turned them back to the County Supervisors who then pointed them back to the County Parks Department.
They were engaged in a battle of will. How many meetings would it take to make the club disappear? They were involved in a game with no rules or rules created by political officials as they went along.
The AMA was asked to step in and attended eight meetings with our local government, sending numerous communications to our county supervisors and their assistants. In the first meeting with County Parks Department, with Rich Hanson, the vice president of AMA District X, Wes De Cou, and a club officer from four of the five invited RC clubs, the County Parks Department geographically pinpointed the five flying sites operating within Ventura County-one in each supervisor's district.
At the start of the meeting, the were directed to form a 'single voice' to represent our interests; officials didn't want to deal with the confusion of five separate entities, involving them in a tug-of-war
Joseph Martin was appointed to speak on behalf of and best represent the interests of each of the five Ventura County RC clubs. He spent numerous hours in meetings with city, town, and county officials reviewing and traveling to potential sites, including landfill properties.
Once site approved for flying was going to be converted to a golf course. In order to keep this land, the club got involved with spearheading a promotional campaign, 'Help Save the Park.' The AMA campaigned for help to save the park, a bigger concern for the voting communities and the press, as opposed to just one club and one flying field.
The club aligned itself with the Audubon Society and the Dolphin Clan of the Chumash
Indian, since both are always in need of open space. Flyers, ads, an email campaign, and a website was created to generate public support and put pressure on the political officials.
This story wouldn't be complete without including the handful of modelers who disagreed with the tactics. They felt that the campaign was too much of 'an attack’ and actually created some resistance to the success of getting a flying site.
The officials were so impressed with the campaign, they tabled the golf course permits… but only temporarily. One impressed official gave a tip about a portion of land- 70 acres privately owned by the Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDAC). Shortly after the club signed a lease with the SDAC and the club now has a flying field.