The language adopted by the San Diego Regional Airport Authority for Proposition A on the Nov. 7 ballot asks the voters in San Diego County to approve obtaining 3,000 of the 23,000 acres at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station for a commercial airport.

That airport authority knows, and has always known, that there are not an additional 3,000 usable acres available at Miramar for a civilian airfield. The only usable acreage that has ever been available at Miramar is the acreage that is already occupied by the Marines for their multiuse, war-fighting training and for the housing for the families and single Marines and sailors who live there.

Miramar is not an airfield like Lindbergh -- it's a base. Intensive training occurs within the confines of its 23,000 acres as the Marines perfect the skills we expect of our 21st century military. Additionally, 6,500 personnel live there, and with the added 1,600 homes planned and approved, the permanent resident population of the base will grow to more than 10,000. If the airport authority wants to force the Marines from Miramar, obtaining a yes vote on this measure by San Diego County voters will go a long way in accomplishing it. Ultimately, that would result in the departure of Marine aviation from Southern California as there is no other location in Southern California for this premier arm of our nation's defense.

The airport authority claims it does not want the Marines' departure from Miramar and is therefore proposing a joint-use option. The outcome of such a move would intermingle jet fighters and sophisticated helicopters with commercial aircraft, and would be unthinkable from an aviation safety standpoint. Our military leadership from the Navy Department in Washington, D.C., to our local Navy and Marine commanders strongly echo the same concerns. Those local commanders are close to the day-to-day training conducted at Miramar and they know intimately the hazards that would be created for the traveling public, the aviators that train there and the residents of the base and the surrounding communities by such a joint operation. Plainly, joint use is not possible and therefore, as stated previously, a yes vote would be forcing the Marines out of Miramar.

Twenty-eight of our local political leaders from members of Congress to state senators, Assembly members, supervisors, mayors and city council members have rejected the proposal to site a commercial airport at Miramar.

I don't believe all of those 28 are "shortsighted -- with a dismaying lack of leadership," as has been suggested by some. I believe they clearly understand the shortsightedness of those that proposed such a location for a commercial airport.

Miramar presently has about 10,000 annual fixed-wing aircraft departures that go to the west through a closely defined corridor in the airspace over Sorrento Valley. The airport authority's study for the use of Miramar assumes 130,000 departures annually by 2022. Those departures will all be generally to the west and will affect businesses and homes over a great area of some of our most densely populated communities. The airport authority has not defined the community impacts that would be created by a move to Miramar. The ballot language, however, goes on to state that "overall noise impacts will be reduced" if they locate a commercial airport at Miramar, but leaves it to the voters to accept that as a "leap of faith."

The gloom and doom for our economy forecasted by the airport authority if we do not move the airport to Miramar has been disputed by the chairman of the Economics Department at UCSD. Both he and the San Diego County Taxpayers Association have stated that the economic assumptions used as the base for the airport authority study are "fatally flawed." I also see no validity in the airport authority's assumptions. My additional concern with Prop. A is about the land use and noise impacts on the robust industries and communities that surround Sorrento Mesa. If these industries are unable to expand, the impacts on our economy and businesses in San Diego County could be far greater than keeping our regional airport at Lindbergh Field.

I recommend that the voters of San Diego County reject the ballot language and vote no on Prop. A.

Bruce R. Boland is a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral, a member of the San Diego Military Advisory Council executive committee and a founding member of No on Prop. A.