The “Proposition A” ballot language for the Nov. 7 election asks the voters to approve the seeking of 3,000 of the 23,000 acres at Miramar for a commercial airport. The Regional Airport Authority has disavowed the study on Joint Use that was produced by their consultants, Ricondo and Associates, and they know that there are not 3,000 acres available at Miramar for a civilian airfield. The only acreage that has ever been available for use is the acreage that is already occupied by the Marines for their multifaceted war fighting training, and for housing for the families and single Marines and sailors that live there.
Miramar is NOT an airport like Lindbergh, it’s a BASE. Sixty-five hundred personnel are living there, and with the additional 1600 homes planned and approved, the permanent resident population will grow to more than 10,000. If the voters want to force the Marines and Navy from Miramar, a positive vote will go a long way in accomplishing that.
Twenty-eight of our local political leaders, from Congresspersons to state senators, Assemblypersons, Supervisors, mayors and council members have rejected the March to Miramar by the Regional Airport Authority. The San Diego County Sheriff and a councilman from the City of San Diego are the only two of our political leaders that have urged an affirmative vote. The sheriff appointed one of the executive committee members of the Regional Airport Authority and the councilman is a member of that same board. I don’t believe ALL of the 28 political rejections came from a “shortsighted group of leaders ” with a dismaying lack of leadership” as suggested by some in the print media of San Diego.
The Marines and Navy have continued to assist with more than 900 hours of staff time in meetings and information sharing, and tens of thousands of dollars in direct expenditure for reproduction and research throughout the Regional Airport Authority study. The problem is not that the Marines and Navy refused to cooperate; it’s that the Regional Airport Authority didn’t like the answer they got. It’s inherently UNSAFE to mix tactical high-performance jet aircraft with passenger-carrying commercial aircraft from the same air base.
A persistent legend is that departures from a commercial airport at Miramar would be less intrusive on the surrounding communities than Marine Corps operations. Presently there are about 10,000 fixed wing departures annually from Miramar that fly to the west through a closely defined corridor in the airspace over the Sorrento Valley. The Regional Airport Authority’s study assumes 130,000 departures annually from Miramar by 2022. Those departures will all be generally straight out to the west.
Another legend is that passenger air traffic from Lindbergh will grow at the assumed rate of 3.2 percent as postulated in the Regional Airport Authority study. However in the last year passenger traffic has only grown at eight-tenths of 1 percent and in fact growth has been flat over this past summer as reported by the Regional Airport Authority.
The legend of the gloom and doom for our economy if we remain at Lindbergh, as forecasted by the Regional Airport Authority, has been disputed by the chairman of the economics department of the University of California at San Diego. Both he and the San Diego County Taxpayers Association have stated that the economic assumptions used as the base for the Regional Airport Authority study are “fatally flawed.”
I believe our children and grandchildren are safe in San Diego from the legends of economic doom and aviation gloom, even when the Regional Airport Authority fails in its March to Miramar.
Boland is a US Navy Rear Admiral (retired) and a member of the San Diego Military Advisory Council executive committee. He is a founding member of “NO on PROP A.”