"After years of dispute, San Jose, California airport expansion takes off"

Friday, November 16, 2001

After years of dispute, San Jose airport expansion takes off
By Timothy Roberts 
The Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal


A proposal to expand and renovate the Norman Y. Mineta San Jose
international Airport was headed to a dicey vote before the City Council
-- until Ken Yeager of the 6th District called a meeting in his office
Nov. 8. There for the first time, all the participants in a decade-long
battle over the airport's expansion plans met. 

The compromise they came up with will allow San Jose to finally overhaul
its helter-skelter, crowded airport, giving hope to business and
vacation travelers who have long complained about incommodious terminals
and delays. It also gives some hope to the airport's neighbors, who have
been jittery about noise and pollution. 

The San Jose City Council approved the compromise by a unanimous vote
Nov. 13, allowing the airport to begin designing a new terminal, parking
garages', rental car facilities and a people-mover. The latter will
carry passengers from the First Street light rail station through the
terminal and eventually out to a BART station planned for Santa Clara. 

The project could cost from $2 billion to $3 billion and be completed as
early as 2007. The airlines will pay half the expense through landing
fees and ticket taxes; airport bonds will pay the other half. 

"I know how difficult it is to balance all the interests," Jim Cunneen,
president and CEO of the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce,
told the council shortly before it voted. "A vote for this (compromise)
will meet the needs of the community." 

Included in the talks were airport officials Bill Potter and Dave Moss;
Mr. Cunneen; and three neighborhood representatives: Leonora Porcella,
Ed Blackmond and Kenneth Hayes. 

Much of the push for expansion came from area businesses whose employees
use the airport. 

"Our employees are affected daily by airport delays," says Noel Tebo,
manager of quality and operations support at Roche Bioscience in Palo
Alto. "We support the new terminal." 

Neighbors of the airport are less effusive in their praise of the
agreement, but say they were pleased with the progress made. "The plan
is workable," says Mr. Blackmond, who is president of Eureka Computing
Solutions. "It just depends on how we work it." 

Ms. Porcella says the neighbors had forced the airport to make
significant concessions. But she says she is still worried about the
future of the city's curfew, which limits flights at night. Oracle CEO
Larry Ellison challenged the curfew's application to his private jet,
and a U.S. District Court Judge agreed with Mr. Elison. Neighbors now
wonder how much bite the ordinance has. 

The agreement calls on the city to see if it can fine people and
airlines who violate the curfew, which currently has no penalties. The
airport also will look into installing air-quality monitors and speeding
up the airport's sound-proofing efforts for nearby homes. 

More worrisome to businesses was one provision that would require the
airport to conduct a new environmental impact report, a lengthy and
usually contentious process, if it ever wanted to add more gates to the
40 allowed by the new agreement. 

Mr. Yeager, who was elected to the council last year, says he hopes that
the Nov. 8 discussion that led to the agreement will continue as the
airport expands. 

"By no means does this end the dialogue," he says. 

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