Amid the bustling noises of a busy airport terminal and a tight leash, airport authority officials were relatively mum as they briefed the media Thursday, Feb. 16, on what was said during a recent meeting with Navy Assistant Secretary B.J. Penn in Washington, D.C. over possible joint-use scenarios.
Speaking only in general terms, Joe Craver, chairman of the San Diego Regional Airport Authority, said the meeting was “productive and very, very informative,” and that Penn and his staff listened “very respectfully and seemed to understand the criticality of our situation.”
Also in attendance were Thella Bowens, president/CEO of the authority, along with board members Xema Jacobson and William Lynch.
Craver stressed the meeting was purely informative and that neither the authority nor the Navy had made any determinations.
“I’m sure after our meeting that they had a discussion and they talked about it, but nothing was shared with us,” he said.
Craver did say that Penn was willing to cooperate with the authority in their quest to fully study the feasibility of any joint use scenario with five military installations in San Diego County.
“I think that’s very noteworthy,’ Craver said. “To me, the ‘cooperation’ means that they will work with us and that’s something that we need.”
Craver relayed Penn’s criteria for evaluating any joint-use proposals in that it would have to support the Navy, troops and the country.
Regardless, Craver said he and his colleagues left the meeting with feelings of mutual cooperation.
“We got the feeling that this is something they want to go ahead and hear,” Craver said.
The meeting took place under the prompting of Rep. Susan Davis, D-San Diego, in a letter to U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on the need for the invested parties to coordinate their efforts. That set up the appointment, with the next one up in the air.
“We don’t know what the next step is,” Craver said, adding that the authority would wait for an “appropriate” amount of time for the Navy to initiate the next meeting.
But when pressed under the commanding glare of over a half dozen television cameras and eager reporters, Craver would not elaborate on the specifics of the meeting, or whether Penn had given any specific direction or input.
Communications personnel for the authority could be seen giving Craver cut-off signals to end the conference almost as quickly as it had started, forcing reporters to scramble for face time with Craver and other officials behind the camera.
“I’m confident with the timeline,” said Lynch in regards to the impending August deadline for the authority to submit its Nov. 7 ballot language for a new site.
But that’s as far as he got before being whisked away from the press area, just minutes after Craver proclaimed the process as “full and transparent.”
Whichever site the authority decides to present to voters in Nov. will be advisory. Little has been said about what will happen if voters reject the proposal.
The military sites currently under review for use in one form or another include Marine Corps Air Stations in Miramar and East Miramar, Camp Pendleton and North Island Naval Air Station.
A statement released by the airport authority Friday, Feb. 17, said Penn stated that "all solutions seemed to jeopardize training for sailors and Marines and therefore he could not support any of the proposals."
The statement went on to say that Penn said he "could not be teammates with the authority, but would continue to provide information, as requested."
Campo-Boulevard in East County and the Imperial County desert are the civilian sites that have received the most extensive vetting so far, while an expansion of San Diego International Airport with a closed V-shaped, two-runway layout has been recently introduced into the mix. That option, though, is contingent on the availability of land now occupied by the Marine Corps Recruit Depot.
The Campo and Imperial County sites also come with their own set of complications, including distance, flight pattern restrictions, environmental hurdles and a massive price tag to include a possible high-speed maglev train that could run past $17 billion.
The airport authority has said it expects SDIA to reach its capacity by 2015, despite plans to build-out Terminal 2 as part of its master plan, which includes 10 new jet gates, more aircraft parking and a new vehicle parking structure.
A new airport could take 15 to 20 years to build once approved.