Bases are next focus of airport authority

By: MARK WALKER - Staff Writer | Wednesday, October 26, 2005 10:55 PM PDT ∞

Four military bases are about to fall into the sights of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority as it considers where the region's next airport should be built.

Although the chance of a military base succeeding San Diego's Lindbergh Field is considered remote, the state legislation that created the authority mandates that it study the bases and consider shared military and civilian aircraft use.

Authority board member and Lemon Grove Mayor Mary Sessom said that early cursory looks at the bases satisfy the legislation and that she considers the Defense Department lands untouchable. No local military installation is due for major changes as a result of the recent nationwide base closure and realignment.

"They are not available as stand-alone sites and even as joint-use airports, they don't solve our problems because of flight capacity issues," Sessom said.

Eight sites other than Lindbergh remain on the authority's list of potential airport locations as it seeks a solution to accommodate projected growth in cargo and passenger demand.

The four bases are Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, the site of two study areas, Camp Pendleton, North Island Naval Air Station and March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County.

Until now, the authority has refrained from discussing the bases, a bow to the county's congressional delegation, which demanded that the agency keep mum until the end of the base closure process.

That process should come to a head later today when the U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a resolution that asks members to reject the base closure commission's recommendations.

According to Congress Daily, a publication that covers Capitol Hill, the resolution is expected to be overwhelmingly rejected. If that happens and the Senate follows suit, the decks are cleared for the authority to put the base issue front and center.

Angela Shafer Payne, the authority's vice president for strategic planning, said a planning committee will consider how to proceed on the military sites on Nov. 14, with its recommendation scheduled to go to the full board on Dec. 5.

Board member Xema Jacobson said her preference is to bring the Marine Corps and Navy in for a full hearing on their view of sharing their airfields with civilian airliners and cargo planes.

"I'm not prepared to vote for a full analysis of bases until I'm clear on what joint use would mean to the Marine Corps and Navy," Jacobson said.

Sessom said she does not believe shared use has any future.

"That would interfere significantly with national security and national defense issues and I'm not real anxious to go there," she said.

While recent surveys and public discussion efforts have often landed at Miramar as the preferred airport site because of its central county location and easy freeway access, an attempt to put a new airport there or share the base is expected to be met with vehement opposition from congressional representatives and the surrounding community.

Nonetheless, John Chalker, the head of a business group lobbying for a new airport with an eye toward redeveloping the Lindbergh and prime waterfront views, said he believes the bases must be fully analyzed with consideration of what could happen five or 10 years from now.

"I think it's very clear that board members' personal opinions don't control what the Legislature mandated the authority to do, which includes studying the military sites," said Chalker, president of Alliance in Support of Airport Progress in the 21st Century. "The only way the issue is going to get resolved is to do a thorough and complete study, and that includes looking at the bases as 100 percent complete civilian use or joint use."

In addition to the bases and Lindbergh, the authority's list of sites includes Campo in the southeastern portion of the county and one in Imperial County. Also still on the list, but not being studied further, is Borrego Springs.

Sessom also suggested that the authority might have to decide to get a little more creative and revisit some of the sites long ago dismissed.

"We could certainly ask our consultants to relook at some of those sites and resurrect one," she said.

The nine-member authority board has said that it will have a recommendation ready by the end of April. Whatever it comes up with goes before county voters in November 2006.

If voters reject what's put before them, Jacobson said she believes Lindbergh expansion is the default solution.

Shafer Payne said she isn't as certain. If voters do reject whatever recommendation is put before them, the authority staff would look to the board to decide the next step.

Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com.