Please select the choice or choices you would like to see:

[Neil Larson]

A Historic Landmark or Point in California –
In order to obtain or be granted by the state , the site must meet at least one of several criteria. Very important to the “Otto Hill Project” is to be able to at some point seek further to obtain or be granted some form of California State Historical recognition.

Criteria for Designation
To be eligible for designation as a Landmark, a resource must meet at least one of the following criteria:
1. The first, last, only, or most significant of its type in the state or within a large geographic region (Northern, Central, or Southern California).
2. Associated with an individual or group having a profound influence on the history of California.
3. A prototype of, or an outstanding example of, a period, style, architectural movement or construction or is one of the more notable works or the best surviving work in a region of a pioneer architect, designer or master builder.

Most of the listed current California Landmarks or Points of Interest (POI) have been designated because they were germane to the establishment of the population of the state.
By being the first road , or dam, or building to be built for a specific purpose.

We believe the historic significance of the Hang Gliding event of Newport Beach of May23rd 1971 , meets more than one of these requirements. It is therefore our purpose & our goal to proceed forward with our current effort in a manner which will lend positive support to allowing a State POI or Landmark.
In particular we must focus on “wording’ so as to establish these criteria within our initial petition to the City of Newport Beach. Should a decision be made to “word” a plaque or marker with inappropriate or misguided expressions, our future effort to establish a National & State Landmark will be crippled.

It is therefore our purpose in this elementary stage of this project to simple & directly list facts of historic value , such as time – place – reason –etc or simply who, what , when , where , why…
Should the error occur and misguided non-tangible phrases enter into the “wording”-
It is probable that these generalized or compromised “words” will indeed be the very elements which curtail & hinder the future objective of presenting our “marker” for State or National review as a potential LANDMARK.

I strongly urge that any vote being allowed or being made in regard to our project be carefully understood by the voter in specific regard to the above direction & purpose.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Maybe we're going about this in the wrong way.

Maybe we'd be better off selecting one person to come up with something and then working with that. It would be a shame to see this not happen just because we can't get consensus over wording.

Also, it's clear that whatever gets placed on a plaque will not tell the whole story. So maybe we should keep the wording very short and offer a link to more information. That link could go anywhere - including a new site that might be dedicated to this marker. Or that link could point to resources on an existing site ... like maybe the Newport Beach Historical Society. That would help promote their efforts as well, and it's a way that we could contribute back to them.

[Neil Larson]

the word "Competitive" has been omitted from this draft,
because the use of the term "SPORT" implies obvious human element of competition.
“YOU CAN’T PLAY TENNIS BY YOURSELF.”
To quote Tommy Mercer….
Also the phrase "Near This Site" is used here instead of
- on this hill or from this hill –
because , there may be a possibility of this marker being positioned in a prominent location in the new city center being built in Newport Beach, which is located very close to the original hill launch site- A well placed marker like this located in a public & highly trafficked foot path location on the Civic Center may be preferred to being in a private isolated residential community.
As close as I can ascertain, The actual title of the event is being honestly WORDED” here –
The obvious spontaneous growth of worldwide modern HG as a “sport” , from this event is very clear.
Our use of the term Hang Gliding , implies specifically & directly to the personal human “man-flight” activities & developments which began from the 1970’s to today.
Although the sport in a sense may have been enjoyed by individuals throughout past history, we focus on the use of the actual terminology known as “HANG GLIDING” to differentiate this “sport” from previous , singular attempts at human flight experiments which took place sporadically throughout all past human history.