The bigger picture
The following is an open letter to Councilman Scott Peters:
The issue of Miramar replacing Lindbergh is coming up in the forthcoming election, and we haven’t heard much from you. Are you protecting the way of life in La Jolla, Del Mar and University City or going with the developers? The real issue is not the airport. It is the thousands of flights that would yearly thunder over our communities if Miramar is selected. Aircraft must take off into the wind, and that wind is the same wind that made flights from Lindbergh depart over Point Loma for the past decades.
A Miramar selection would transfer those flights over your constituents’ areas 24/7. That would affect thousands of homes, apartments and condos, large shopping centers, four of the city’s major hospitals, high-rise office buildings, hotels, businesses in Sorrento Valley and on Torrey Pines Ridges (most of them scientifically related), churches, synagogues plus two major freeways. In addition, UCSD, with a projected population of thousands of students, the Salk Institute and the Jewish Community Center, and the La Jolla Country Day School would be impacted.
Very powerful financial and political interests are pushing Miramar because they have purchased land in the area with little thought to the bigger picture. Real estate values would plummet with a corresponding loss to city property taxes. La Jolla would be especially hard hit since it would be directly under the flight path of departing aircraft day and night. Far more people would be subject to the noise pollution that is presently impacting Point Loma. A Miramar base would probably put a larger multi-engine commercial jet over La Jolla every 15 or 20 minutes, something that would destroy our way of life there and in surrounding communities.
There is a more viable solution that is closer to downtown. It is the vacant 330-acre old Navy sea-plane base below the Coronado Bridge, which the Airport Authority refuses to seriously consider. It is served by three freeways, would be one of the safest airports in the nation and has almost unlimited growth potential for runways and facilities, which would have to be built mostly on fill. Both Harbor and Shelter islands were built on fill. No need for high-speed rail or other transportation since it would be as close to downtown as Lindbergh.
Your lack of positive action on the Miramar situation makes one wonder if you are doing all you can to protect the way of life in your communities.
T.R. O’Neil, La Jolla