El Toro
Re Shirley A. Conger’s Sept. 18 letter:
The airline industry still is slow and has yet to return to pre-9/11 levels, with several airlines in bankruptcy. Regional passenger demand is far below previous projections.
Jet fuel prices are through the roof and are likely to remain so for years to come.
John Wayne Airport sits underutilized, well below its designed capacity.
And still someone from Newport Beach’s Airport Working Group regurgitates the thoroughly disproven mantra that El Toro International Airport would be a moneymaker.
Douglas K. Blaul
Trabuco Canyon
KOCE
Those who want to take KOCE-TV away from the residents of Orange County have launched a sophisticated and well-funded campaign to confuse and misrepresent the most critical issues related to the Coast Community College District’s sale of the station.
Rather than acknowledge the many benefits of keeping the station educational (and an official PBS station), those favoring the sale of the station to Dallas-based Word of God Fellowship’s Daystar Television Network are instead raising unfounded concerns about the validity of the sale two years ago.
What supporters of Daystar Television Network are not telling Orange County’s taxpayers and KOCE supporters is that there likely would be serious financial consequences as a result of a sale of KOCE to Daystar.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has indicated that it may demand repayment of all or part of the $23 million in Community Service Grants it has provided KOCE since its inception many years ago.
Likewise, the Commerce Department has said it will enforce liens on KOCE equipment it helped fund on the premise for the nonprofit, public television station.
Past donors have contributed $60 million to KOCE through the years and already are preparing a class action lawsuit against the district on behalf of the donors if the station’s status as a public television station is jeopardized by a sale to Daystar.
The Federal Communications Commission would be required to approve the sale of KOCE to a non-public television entity. “Petitions to deny” would be strongly considered by the FCC given that Orange County would be losing its only television station in the process of the sale.
Given these factors, it was fiscally prudent for the district to award the station to the KOCE-TV Foundation two years ago.
Furthermore, as a part of the sale, the KOCE-TV Foundation continues to broadcast television courses for the Coast Community College District, which generates millions in revenue for the district.
It’s time that the district trustees responsible for making the decision to sell the station to the foundation are given the credit they deserve for making a strong and forward-thinking choice.
The decision to sell the station to the KOCE-TV Foundation two years ago was a good one. It keeps our local station local and keeps Orange County less dependent on Los Angeles for “local programming.” But more than that, it keeps the station’s primary use one of education so that our diverse populations can continue to enjoy and learn from its offerings.
Mel Rogers
President, KOCE-TV
Huntington Beach
Missing in media coverage of the attempted acquisition of Orange County television station KOCE by Texas evangelist Daystar is the business angle. Orange County is arguably the hottest evangelistic market in the nation. Can you imagine how profitable KOCE would be to an evangelistic organization? No wonder Daystar is trying so hard to acquire the station.
Martin A. Brower
Corona del Mar
