"Is Prop. A last word on site for San Diego airport?"

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Is Prop. A last word on site for airport? 
Despite 'advisory' label, voters treating it that way
By Jeff Ristine
The San Diego (CA) Union-Tribune


Yes or no isn't usually this complicated. 

Proposition A on the Nov. 7 ballot asks voters if a portion of the Miramar
Marine Corps Air Station should be used as a civilian airport. 

The San Diego County Regional Airport Authority says the measure is advisory
- or nonbinding. But some voters may think the airport site search,
conducted over four years at a cost of more than $17 million, will give them
the last word. 

Former state Sen. Steve Peace, a co-sponsor of the legislation that created
the Airport Authority, says it should. 

"No means they're staying at Lindbergh," Peace said. "They cannot go
anywhere else without a vote, and the Legislature said you've got to have
that vote by 2006." 

Airport Authority officials say legal considerations forced them into an
"advisory" tag, and that no one should think they'll defy the will of the
people. 

Others say it's unreasonable to expect Miramar could not resurface as an
option, or that a "yes" vote would force the military to drop steadfast
opposition to a civilian airport. 

For those weary of the debate, it means the implications of the vote could
take years to resolve. 

"Even if it comes down positive, it will still be a confusing atmosphere out
there," said Lance Murphy, a Point Loma resident who believes Lindbergh
Field is rapidly approaching its operational capacity. 

Jim Panknin, a No-on-Prop. A committee member and chairman of the
authority's citizens advisory board, said the choice of Miramar makes
matters worse. 

Voters are being asked to consider "federal land that's not available,"
Panknin said. "It's delaying actual work on a realistic solution." 

Both camps on the issue say voters seem to be treating the measure as
conclusive, regardless of the ballot label. 

Peace said he never would have dropped more grandiose proposals for a
regional transportation and infrastructure agency if the outcome of the
airport vote was not going to "put that question behind us." 

The authority board voted July 6, a month after selecting Miramar as the
most suitable replacement for Lindbergh Field, to designate its countywide
measure as advisory. 

Legal advice given to the board in private a few weeks later supported the
action. At the time, board members said they felt comfortable with the
decision because there was no detailed project for an airport at Miramar.
 
Also, "the reality of it is that Miramar is owned by the Navy," board member
Paul Peterson explained last week at a legislative hearing. "It is not
legally available to us." 

Peace, who hasn't taken a public position on the ballot measure, said a
final answer was one of the chief reasons for the Airport Authority, created
by legislation carried by then-Assemblyman Howard Wayne. Wayne and Peace are
Democrats. 

If the measure fails, Peace said, it was thought the authority would be
unable to go back and consider some other airport option unless the
Legislature authorized them to. Unlike a 1994 ballot measure on Miramar also
labeled advisory, he said the new vote was supposed to be conclusive. 

"Even if I'm wrong," Peace said, voters "have a right to know there's a
dispute about it." 

Breton Lobner, general counsel to the Airport Authority, said the board
would be obligated to treat a "yes" vote as policy direction from the
electorate. While it couldn't force the issue, he said, the agency would be
expected to "use their best efforts" to try. 

Lobner disputes Peace's position that a "no" vote forestalls future
discussion of Miramar. 

"I don't think the state Legislature or any other governmental agency can
bind the future actions of a government entity," he said. 

Malin Burnham, a San Diego businessman and a prime mover behind the ballot
measure, also thinks a "no" vote won't necessarily keep officials from
reconsidering Miramar. 

If Miramar ever were to be voluntarily closed by the military - a prospect
opponents find hard to imagine - Burnham said: "We would have an
opportunity, would we not, to put an airport there." 

John Chalker, a leader of the Yes-on-A committee, said a favorable vote
would represent "an expression of the will of the people to try to make
progress on this difficult problem." 

"I don't expect anything radical or significant to happen in the first
three, four, five months," Chalker said. 

Murphy, the Point Loma resident, wonders whether a "yes" vote on an advisory
measure would count for much. 

"You can't expect the politicians to take that as an edict to change their
minds," he said. "They've all acknowledged that they aren't listening to the
Airport Authority at this point, and they don't agree with them, so it's
kind of a pointless exercise, isn't it?" 

Periodic turnover on the Airport Authority board of directors introduces an
additional complication. Five of the nine members, including all three
executive committee members, have terms expiring in December. 

Another potential complication is an effort by state Sen. Christine Kehoe,
D-San Diego, to restructure the authority's governing board, perhaps
shifting some of its responsibilities to the San Diego Association of
Governments board. 

Lemon Grove Mayor Mary Teresa Sessom, who will continue to serve on the
SANDAG board after her term on the airport board expires this year, said she
doesn't like the way the authority has handled the matter. 

The legal opinion affirming the measure as advisory should have been drafted
before the board voted, she said, to avoid the impression that it was aimed
at supporting action already taken. 

If the authority had considered the Legislature's intent in creating the
authority, Sessom said: "I think they would have found that it was not the
intent for this to be advisory." 

"The way it is phrased now, we will not move on," she said, "regardless of
how the vote comes out." 

And Bruce Boland, a retired rear admiral and a leader of the No-on-Prop. A
campaign committee, said it seems odd to be offering a nonbinding measure
after a technical analysis that cost more than $11 million. An unpopular
joint-use concept for Miramar that emerged from that analysis was quickly
disavowed as unworkable by the authority board, he said. 

"Throughout this whole issue, people have believed that as a result of this
election, something would happen," Boland said. "Now they're getting the
opinion that nothing would happen." 

Proposition A
A measure from the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority asks whether
officials should try to obtain a portion of Miramar Marine Corps Air Station
for a commercial airport. 

State legislation that established the agency required the authority to
review options and submit its recommendation to voters.

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