"Los Angeles airport debate revives council"

Wednesday, January 31, 2001

Airport debate revives council
By DON JERGLER - Aerospace Writer
The Antelope Valley Press, Palmdale (CA)


PALMDALE - The escalating debate over Southern California regional airports
may have kicked up enough dirt to shake the dust from one of the Antelope
Valley's most regal organizations.

The Palmdale Regional Advisory Council, a citizens group formed nearly 30
years ago, will meet for the first time in roughly two years to discuss its
own future.

The council's Interim President Howard Brooks called the Feb. 15 meeting in
the wake of a heated debate about plans released this month to expand Los
Angeles International Airport.

Those plans, which mention Palmdale Airport, along with other outlying
airports, drew ire from proponents of taking a regional development approach
to address growing aviation demands on Southern California.

Some are looking to the development of Palmdale Airport to help solve
aviation demands, projected to increase to 157 million air passengers
regionally per year by 2020. Currently, 67 million passengers fly in or out
of LAX each year.

Others wish to expand LAX and allow outlying airports such as the one in
Palmdale to develop when the need for them arises as airlines begin to look
to the areas based on population size and accessibility.

At the time of its creation, the advisory council was known as the
Supporters of Palmdale Intercontinental Airport and was focused primarily on
developing the 17,000 acres adjacent to the Palmdale Airport/Air Force Plant
42 facility.

After its name was changed, the group focused on bringing commercial air
service to the Palmdale Airport/Plant 42 facility.

When the group met last, it had a few hundred members, said Brooks, who is
also executive director for the Antelope Valley Board of Trade.

Brooks said the group stopped meeting regularly when the Palmdale Working
Group was formed and took on many of the airport issues the council was
addressing.

The Working Group is spearheaded by the city of Palmdale and the office of
Los Angeles County 5th District Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, a die-hard
opponent of LAX expansion.

Rent is still being paid from previously collected membership fees on the
group's office at the Palmdale Airport, Brooks said, but he added that fees
haven't been collected for a while.

Now that the airport issue is once again taking center stage within the
community, it may be time to decide whether the group should reorganize or
dissolve, Brooks said.

"I think that it needs to be picked up," Brooks said. "It sounds like maybe
it's going to work again.

Larry Chimbole, one of the founders of Palmdale as a city and one of the
advisory council's original members, said he supports keeping the group
afloat.

"This organization has been really something that the Department of Airports
had a little bit of respect for," he said. "I'm in favor of this
organization maintaining the high profile that it had and the respectful
position it held in the community."

Chimbole said he preferred not to say the organization was defunct for the
past two years.

"I just say that it's been lying fallow for some time," he said.

According to Chimbole, the founder of the council was Cliff Rawson, who at
the time was the executive director of the Antelope Valley Board of Trade.
The group's first president was Ron Carter, whose family owned KAVL 610 AM
radio and the Antelope Valley Bus Co., which later became the Antelope
Valley Transit Authority.

The original dues were $5 per year, Chimbole said.

The group was patterned after the Supporters of the Ontario International
Airport. That group still exists.

"We have a lot of work to do and we have the forces of the Department of
Airports and the airlines wanting to centralize everything in one place,"
Chimbole said. "What we need to do is find kind of a middle ground."

Roger Persons, who runs Chapel of the Valley Mortuary, is also one of the
original members.

He too supports keeping the group up and running.

"I think it's a valuable group made up of a lot of people here in the
Antelope Valley," Persons said.

In the past, the group met once every quarter, he added.

"I anticipate that we will probably start on that again," he said. "I think
there will be more interest from the simple standpoint that we have more
interest from the people from Los Angeles than we've ever had before."

As for developing an airport in Palmdale, Persons said:

"It's something that's going to happen eventually. With the population
increasing in this area, there's going to be more of a demand that it be
placed here."

The meeting is scheduled for noon Thursday, Feb. 15, at the Palmdale
Regional Airport Office near the corner of 25th Street East and Avenue P.

 What do you think of this story? Post your opinion in the CAA Discussion Forum
http://www.californiaaviation.org/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi?conf=DCConfID8

*****************************************