Mailbag: Polling place was lonely on low-turnout Tuesday

I recently moved to Irvine from Los Angeles. In the previous election here, I had voted with my customary paper ballot.

On the day of the special election, I arrived at the polling place and was greeted with a wave of enthusiasm. I signed in and got my ticket.

Someone said, “No waiting in Booth 1.”

But of course, there was no waiting in any of the other booths. I was the only voter present, and only the eighth to have shown up at that point.

I got my ticket for the ballot and was asked if I would like to vote electronically or by paper. But the ticket I had received was for the electronic booth, and I decided to give it a try.

The voting device was similar to an Etch A Sketch. The plastic device had a screen like a computer pad, but it was not touch-sensitive. Was there a keyboard? No. What it had was a few buttons and a thumb wheel.

But since it was a special election, there was only one step to voting. All I had to do was pick one of four boxes and push one button.

So I dialed the thumb wheel down to the fourth box because I wanted to vote for a write-in.

But to do a write-in, you had to spell out the name in the blank. Dial, dial, dial, “L.” Squeak, squeak, “O.” Wait, was that the right way to spell “Louise?” Hmm, it’s a name with three vowels in a row. Turn, turn, turn, “U,” “I,” “S,” “E.” Blank.

I think this system is unfair to write-in candidates.

The minutes ticked by as I labored through “S”, “T”, “E”, “W”, “A”, “R”, “D.”

I finished dialing, “S,” “O” and “N.”

On the way out, I told the lonely electoral crew that I was going to go back to voting by paper in the future. And everybody knew who I voted for.

Larry A. Taylor

Irvine

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JWA flight path is not optimal

The extension of the John Wayne Airport agreement, including curfew, is a cause for celebration. Thanks to the hard work of many groups, Newport Beach residents in the departure pattern will sleep more easily.

The agreement calls for orderly growth of flights and the closure of JWA at 11 p.m. While residents are celebrating the curfew, most of us have never stopped to ask why departures turn left and fly over the most densely populated areas of the city.

After all, they could easily fly over more sparsely populated areas and even more open water. Alternatively, we might have asked why they can’t vary their departure patterns and distribute the burden over multiple areas rather than just one.

Residents of the affected areas are worried about pollutants from the planes and the potential harm to health. They are concerned about noise and the fact that alternative flight paths were never discussed.

The dirty little secret is that new GPS systems will narrow the departure pattern, and in a few years all departures will be in an exact narrow lane. Those who live under that departure lane will have all of the planes flying directly over their houses.

Maybe Newport Beach, Orange County or the Federal Aviation Administration can explain why my neighbors and I have to die slow deaths from jet fuel pollution and be subject to this noise. Is it political? An FAA policy? Did we draw the short straw years ago?

All the FAA has to do is pick a few more points out in the ocean for the planes to target, creating a fan pattern, and that would give a break to certain residents while others share the noise. The sheer volume of flight traffic is astonishing.

Residents of Newport Beach, including Promontory Point, Beacon Bay, Harbor Island, Balboa Island and the Balboa Peninsula, deserve a change. Will it take an angry crowd to change this practice? I am willing to lead this group.

Lee Pearl

Baloba Island