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Miramar is chosen site, residents told
By Christy Scott
The Alpine Sun
SAN DIEGO — A special airport authority meeting entitled “Community Conversations” and intended to explore public views on the airport site selection project, drew only a few to the Alpine Community Center last Wednesday.
Officials attributed the sparse attendance to the announcement a few days earlier that its preferred site is Miramar Air Force base. The Alpine Sun notes, however, that no effort was made to notice the meeting in local newspapers.
“On Monday, a four-member committee of our nine-member board met and proposed some potential ballot language and also proposed an action to remove all other sites but Miramar,” said Angela Shafer-Payne, vice president of strategic planning for the San Diego Regional Airport Authority.
Shafer-Payne and a group of other authority planners and consultants spoke to an intimate group of 15 residents at the ACC last Wednesday. The room was set up and catered for more than100, after a good turn-out in San Marcos the night before.
Attendees got a brief overview of the site-selection project to date, then were split into groups to discuss — not argue — what the Airport Authority should do.
In all, five such workshops have taken place around the county, with the input collected from residents to be taken to the airport authority’s June 5 meeting and adoption of ballot language.
“This is not a final action by the board. This is just a recommendation of the committee,” Shafer-Payne said. “It’ not too late to give public input on this process.”
“Much of the concerns for residents out here, has certainly been alleviated after Monday’s vote,” she added.
The vote taken, which passed 3-1, states that, based on the comprehensive studies taken and the numerous public hearings, the board should remove all other site options, and to select MCAS Miramar for the November ballot. The draft ballot measure language is as follows:
“Shall San Diego County government officials make every effort to persuade Congress and the military to make available, by 2020, approximately 3,000 of over 23,000 acres at MCAS Miramar for a commercial airport, provided: (1) military readiness and safety are maintained with no cost to the military for relocating or modifying operations; (2) necessary traffic and transportation improvements are made; and (3) no local tax dollars are used on the airport.”
The motion passed with Nieto, Paul Peterson and Young voting in favor and Sessom opposing.
“Miramar is the only viable option. How can you ignore it?” asked Peterson, who introduced the ballot language. “It is ideally suited to serve the entire San Diego County region.”
Sessom, who cast the committee's lone dissenting vote, said the site-selection process had failed to maximize current capacity at Lindbergh Field. That failure, she cautioned, could leave the region in “a world of hurt” if voters reject Miramar.
“Nothing is different than 1994,” she said, referring to the last time an advisory vote was taken in approval of Miramar, “except now I feel we're just passing this along to the next generation.”
As Miramar is touted, once again, as the region’s airport solution, the real battle begins to get
cooperation from the military.
The Pentagon has vehemently objected to sharing land at the base, and a 1996 federal law prohibits commercial aircraft from using it. And to date, none of San Diego's congressional representatives have shown any support for a commercial airport at Miramar. In the Pentagon spending bill, which passed the house in early May, District 52 Republican, Congressman Duncan Hunter, included a provision which would ban all joint use at any of the five local military bases.
“Isn’t this just making no decision — like we’ve already done 50 times before?” asked Campo resident Mike Thometz at Wednesday’s workshop. “That isn’t a decision; that is a “well”; it’s an “if”; it’s a “but”; and a maybe we should do this, or maybe that. But in 20 years, we’re going to be back where we’ve always been, looking for another study. I don’t think we’re any closer to a solution now, than we were when we started out.”
Thometz, and others at the meeting, voiced their concerns that regardless of how the ballot measure turns out, and how the voters decide, the airport authority will still be able to do whatever it wants. According to Shafer-Payne, the November ballot measure is just an advisory vote, and is not binding.
“I believe their decision, if they choose to go down this path with Miramar, is based on the technical analysis, and based on what they think is the best site,” Shafer-Payne said.” But at the end of the day, realizing that, if it’s a military base, the military bases aren’t currently available.”
At the Monday strategic planning meeting, military representatives again campaigned against a base option. The military repeatedly has rejected any suggestion of sharing Miramar or any of its other air facilities with a new civilian airport, citing training needs and safety concerns.
That prompted board member Young, to chide them for a lack of cooperation, saying the military needs to be “more open and honest.”
“What I heard was a presentation of what can't be done,” Young said. “We're looking for a solution here in San Diego. We're growing up. We're not the military-only town we used to be.”
At Wednesday’s workshop, consultant Joe Huy talked to residents about why the Campo/Boulevard site was removed.
“We’re talking about accessibility and market issues and that’s where these options really get pushed out,” he said. “We don’t need to tell you that Campo is 69 miles out there. Air travel would decrease, tourism would suffer in San Diego County, and much of the business wouldn’t consider coming to San Diego, given the distances that we’re talking about.”
Huy also pointed to the excessive cost of building a gigantic international airport on a groundwater-dependent mountainside.
“Financially, we’re talking about a cost on this of $17 billion, 9.1 of which would be for a high speed transit system,” Huy said.
The full, nine-member board of the airport authority will meet and vote on the site issue at its June 5 public meeting. It will be held at 8 a.m. at the Sheraton Harbor Island Hotel & Marina, West Tower, Fairbanks Ballroom, 1590 Harbor Island Drive, San Diego.
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