Developers Team Up With Paper to Steal Airport

ANN News-Spy Al wrote us, "I thought you would want to see this front page article from the Contra Costa Times. This supervisor, Mark DeSaulnier, attended a recent meeting with concerned pilots regarding the new oppressive lease that the county was attempting to foist upon the hangar renters. He made the comment that, he had no intention to close the airport and for the pilot community to stop worrying... The members of the pilot community -- and there are some powerful folks who fly out of Buchanan -- will be doing everything in their power to see that his political career will end at the county level. This blatant attempt to garner publicity for himself, for an attempt to become a state assemblyman or senator, will backfire on him.

"In the meantime I hope you can expose this politician, before he pulls a Mayor Daley on us."

No fooling!

The article he cites, by Lisa Vorderbrueggen and Peter Felsenfeld, says, "Supervisor Mark DeSaulnier envisions transforming the county-owned Buchanan Field into a compact, or smart-growth, mix of uses such as central library, museum, sports stadium, parks, homes, shops, offices and transit."

In case you might think that's a bunch of editorial nonsense, they quote DeSaulnier: "I've driven by Buchanan for years and asked myself, 'Is a general aviation airport the highest and best use for this land?'"

Hopefully, the paper's expose of the supervisor will have the desired effect. The story continues, "The proposal to close the 57-year-old airfield drew swift opposition from business leaders, pilots and federal aviation officials who view Buchanan as an irreplaceable asset in a rapidly urbanizing community."

Yes; but is a municipality's contract worth anything, when money's involved?

The FAA noted that the airport received a grant just last year; as part of that acceptance, there are 19 more years that the airport must stay open. Added to that, the reporters were told, "The county also agreed to use the land permanently as an airport when it accepted the surplus military property from the federal government in 1946."

Donn Walker, the area's new FAA spokesman, told the Times, "We need to open more airports, not close them, and it's virtually impossible to site and build new airports in major metropolitan areas like the Bay Area."

The Times would like to see the developers win, though. The reporters say, "As a result [of the opposition to ruining the airport], valuable public land that earns the county less than $400,000 a year in airport taxes sits in the heart of a county with a severe housing shortage and the longest average commutes west of Texas."

The article concluded with one more dig at the 'unreasonable' FAA: "Is it a nice piece of property and could you do a lot of neat things? Sure," said Signature [Signature Properties, one of the developers that wants to get its bulldozers over the runway] President Jim Ghielmetti. "But having said that, closing an airport is not easy."

FMI: www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes