The SDCRAA will submit the following ballot language to the San Diego County Registrar of Voters for the November 2006 election. The approved ballot language is as follows:

"To provide for San Diego's long-term air transportation needs, shall the Airport Authority and government officials work to obtain approximately 3,000 of 23,000 acres at MCAS Miramar by 2020 for a commercial airport, provided necessary traffic and freeway improvements are made, military readiness is maintained without expense to the military for modifying or relocating operations, no local taxes are used on the airport, overall noise impacts are reduced, and necessary Lindbergh Field improvements are completed?"

This is not free. Who will pay for all of this – the city taxpayers, the county taxpayers? The Airport Authority won't be paying. The city and county won't be paying. The federal government won't be paying. The airlines won't be paying. Do we have some secret fund somewhere that the SDCRAA hasn't told us about? How will all of this occur? This ballot initiative tells the voter nothing and keeps the citizens of San Diego County going round in circles. This is just not a plausible solution!

If you live in the communities of Tierrasanta, Santee, Scripps Ranch, Mira Mesa, Kearny Mesa, Poway, University City, La Jolla, Carmel Valley, Rancho Bernardo, Sabre Springs, Rancho Penasquitos and Carmel Mountain – this proposed dual-use commercial airport in Miramar will be in your backyard. For the surrounding communities of San Diego, you will have to try and get to the proposed airport via the already heavily congested I-15 corridor, I-805, SR-52 or Hwy. 163. The implications of a "YES" vote on Miramar have enormous ramifications for many, if not all, citizens of San Diego County.

Hits your pocketbook:
A "YES" vote allows the Airport Authority to continue to spend taxpayers money in their effort to move the commercial airport to Miramar. Since 2003, they have already spent close to $4 million of the taxpayers money to lobby on your behalf and have come to the same conclusion that has been in discussion for decades. That amount of tax dollars has not even been added to the numerous amounts of taxpayer money that has been used in the past. There is nothing new here, just a gross waste of taxpayer funds. All of the studies and education to date have been paid for by the SDCRAA, which in turn, has been paid by you. No independent or unbiased group has conducted any study to show if joint use is viable or not.

The Airport Authority's plan states that construction costs for a commercial airport at Miramar would run roughly $5.9 billion with an additional $900 million to $1.7 billion for environmental mitigation. If this ballot measure is approved, the gross waste of taxpayers money will continue into the future without an end in site.

Safety issues:
There are a number of public safety implications of mixing military fighter jets with commercial airline operations over San Diego's densely populated neighborhoods that have not been addressed by the Airport Authority's study. Operationally, the joint-use airport is incompatible as there are 260,000 projected scheduled commercial operations, 112,000 non-scheduled military operations, for a total of 372,000 total operations. This equates to 54 operations per hour on an 18 hour day, 7 days per week. This does not even account for the helicopter training that is being conducted concurrently at Miramar. There would be significant and potentially deadly air gridlock.

Additionally, military aircraft with live ordnance (bombs and missiles) would be integrated with commercial passenger aircraft, military aircraft would be landing with unexpended live ordnance, and commercial passenger aircraft would operate within the military explosive safety zones. The military also conducts new pilot training and qualifications, which would also be mixed with commercial passenger aircraft. The safety and well being of the Marines and their families who live on the air station, the neighbors who live in the surrounding 23,000 acre crash hazard zone, and the passengers on the commercial airflights, have not been adequately addressed by the Airport Authority. Thousands of homes contained within the 23,000 acre aircraft accident potential crash zone will be affected and the Airport Authority has not discussed the public safety implications. Will certain homes be condemned in areas like Clairemont Mesa, Tierrasanta, Mira Mesa and Scripps Ranch?

The Secretary of the Navy, Donald C. Winter, stated on May 21, 2006: "I have not seen any proposals or suggestions as to how that [MCAS Miramar, Dual Operations] could be operated in such a way as to provide both for the safety of the commercial air passengers as well as Marines that would be training there; and continue to provide for the variety of training activities that we currently employ and those that may be needed in the future."

National security concerns:
We are in the midst of the global war on terror. We are fighting on a number of fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan and there are growing concerns with Iran and North Korea. We don't even know what we could be facing as a nation in 10, 20 or 30 years. Our military is seeing a shift into the Pacific, in particular the San Diego area.

When the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission made their cost savings decision in the mid'90s to move the Orange County-based Marine Fighter/Attack aircraft from El Toro and the Marine Helicopters from Tustin to Miramar, they did so with the intention of making the most efficient combat training complex that centers in San Diego County. With that decision, they foreclosed all further options and the die was cast for San Diego to be the defense mega-complex it is today. At the time, this decision was met with great enthusiasm by the political and business leadership in San Diego County.

Intensive training of fleet Navy and Marine pilots, including flying with live ordnance and utilizing the off shore and desert ranges, is the backbone of the operations conducted at MCAS Miramar. From there, the pilots learn the complexities of integrated flying from the "routine" to the most demanding, which includes qualifications in night aircraft carrier landings. All of this training is accomplished safely and efficiently from Miramar in support of national defense and it is done without the complications of integration with commercial aircraft operations.

What hasn't been addressed by the Airport Authority is the incompatibility of a joint-use airport in the event of an increased national state of emergency. If the airport was joint-use at the time of a national emergency, the military would increase all security by necessity where all commercial flights would cease and the military would assume total and exclusive use of the airport. What would the citizens of San Diego County do if this were to occur?

The future of MCAS Miramar matters to more than just the thousands of Marines and Sailors who are assigned there. It matters to the entire Department of Defense. Any impact at Miramar directly affects surrounding military bases. This, in turn, directly affects the residents of San Diego County and ultimately, the citizens of the United States.

Traffic:
As we addressed in the safety issues, if a joint-use airport is put into place, there would be tremendous air gridlock. 260,000 projected scheduled commercial operations, 112,000 non-scheduled military operations, for a total of 372,000 total operations. This equates to 54 operations per hour on an 18 hour day, 7 days per week. This does not even account for the helicopter training that is being conducted concurrently at Miramar.

Car gridlock is just as bad. San Diego County residents currently spend a number of hours on San Diego's freeways. Who has not experienced the traffic on I-15 during a.m. and p.m. commute times? Who has not crawled up or down the SR-52 corridor in and out of Santee? Who has not remained in one position for easily 10 minutes on the I-805? This is just normal traffic for San Diego. Placing an airport at the apex of these freeways, highways, and state routes will make this gridlock worse, not better. A massive airport complex would block the drive north on I-15, I-805, I-5 as well as south to the city center.

The Airport Authority proposes that there would be necessary traffic and freeway improvements. One of their ideas is to re-route sections of I-15 and Hwy. 163 and widen surface streets, including Miramar Road. Who is going to pay for these costly and time consuming infrastructure improvements? When do they anticipate that these improvements will be made? Will these improvements account for the significant increase in traffic towards this area because of the airport or will it take care of current conditions, which are already sub-par and are in dire need of improvements without the airport? These concerns are not addressed adequately, if at all, by the Airport Authority. Who will be able to make their flight or even make it home or to work at a reasonable time?

Noise:
The Airport Authority's report shows that more than 12,000 residents (and as many as 18,000) live in areas that would be exposed to unacceptable noise levels resulting from the joint-use of Miramar. What is ironic, is that the Airport Authority's criteria specifically states that if more than 10,000 residents were to be impacted by the joint-use then it would be considered not feasible and would be dropped from consideration. Miramar falls under that noise category but the Airport Authority has refused to drop it from consideration; they even went against their criteria by moving to place MCAS Miramar on the November 2006 ballot! Even one of the Airport Authority members assured the military that he would support dropping any base that fails Tier One criteria. He did not. Miramar clearly does not meet the criteria and should be dropped.

Even on a June 6 KPBS Radio talk show, Joe Craver, who is the chairman of the Airport Authority, insinuated that joint-use only works if the Marines drop what they are doing at Miramar. "The layout with our consultants have laid out in other words two runways that are south of the existing runway at Miramar. That concept does not work. It, for joint use, it is non-compatible it fails our Tier I criteria. And it also impacts the area. Whereas in our view, that it would have to be some other type of a layout that could work. But basically the ones they have presented to us does not work …" What? Then why did the Airport Authority vote to place the initiative on the ballot in November? Are they going to figure out later how this will all work?

Environmental impacts:
Currently, MCAS Miramar land protects a wide variety of sensitive natural resources, some of which will be paved over by the proposed new 19,000-foot and 12,000-foot commercial runways. The Airport Authority's plan is to do environmental mitigation that would cost roughly $900 million to $1.7 billion.

The expansive terrain is the host of a multitude of diverse plant and animal species. Seven endangered or threatened plant and animal species are located on Miramar's property. Miramar is a corridor to Torrey Pines State Reserve, Soledad Canyon and Mission Trails Regional Park. The vernal pools would be destroyed, which allows the endangered species to exist amongst the San Diego growth. According to the Urban Wildlands Program at Tucson, a commercial airport would drive species such as the San Diego fairy shrimp, San Diego button celery, San Diego mesa mint, Riverside fairy shrimp, Spreading navarretia, and California Orcutt grass to extinction. The Coastal California gnatcatcher would also be detrimentally affected.

Environmentalists state that the vernal pools can not be relocated or replicated in another area. The Airport Authority concluded in their report that mitigating damages to those rare species would be difficult to achieve and that a commercial airport may reduce the species survival rate.

Has the Airport Authority even considered the ramifications of conducting massive grading and filling that will be required to lower the hills to the East? This is an environmental disaster in the making.

Do we want San Diego to become another Los Angeles?
San Diego is a destination airport, not a hub airport. British Airways made the attempt to have direct flights from San Diego to London. This arrangement didn't last long, because there was not enough demand. The SDCRAA keeps saying that San Diego will need two runways by 2015, in order to prevent San Diego from experiencing a "devastating" slump in our economy.

However, a study called, "Opportunity Costs of Constrained Air Transportation in the San Diego Region," (no doubt funded by the Airport Authority) predicts that the one runway Lindbergh Field will double its contribution to the San Diego Gross Regional Product (in constant dollars) by 2035. The study pinpoints that any problems with Lindbergh Field have to do with air cargo constraints, not visitor dollars. The Airport Authority twists this report by making the erroneous assumption that Lindbergh Field is the only regional airport that could handle air cargo operations, which is clearly incorrect. So, if the need for expansion is due to the air cargo constraints, why not utilize other regional airports in the area, like Brown Field, Gillespie Field, Montgomery Field, or Palomar Airport?

Land grabbing:
What this ultimately comes down to is a land grab. The developers want Lindbergh Field for development. They also want the Marines to relocate out of Miramar so they can have 23,000 acres of badly needed land to continue urban development. They ultimately want to get their foot in the door and then gradually push the military out. That is why they are neglecting the removal of Miramar as a joint-use airport due to noise constraints because their plan is to have sole use which would then bring the noise level down to acceptable levels and make Miramar a viable location.

Their hope is to frustrate the military locally and nationally into wanting to move Miramar out of San Diego in the next BRAC round. However, has anyone taken into consideration the economic impact San Diego County and the State of California would endure if the Marines were to depart? According to San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders at a speech in May, "I want to remind everybody: the military brings $19 billion a year into this region – that is a huge part of San Diego's economy, it's an underpinning of it." Who would pay for this relocation? Whether the Marines build a new base or move to an existing facility, the costs of relocation would top $20 billion. Just add that to the cost of the new airport … and then we come back to the ultimate question: who pays for this? Most likely, the taxpayers of San Diego County. If the Airport Authority pays for some of it through bonds then what happens if the Airport Authority defaults?

Finally, what is wrong with Lindbergh?
The Airport Authority's main position is that if San Diego doesn't get a larger airport then the local economy will be adversely affected by 2035. However, if they spent the time, money, and effort into improving upon Lindbergh Field then we wouldn't be in the détente we are facing today. The Airport Authority is also not taking into consideration the fact that aviation technology will continue to improve bringing us planes that are larger, quieter, more fuel efficient, carry more people, and will take off and land in shorter distances. For example, a fully loaded 777 from Tokyo to San Diego does not have an issue landing at Lindbergh Field. Additionally, the number of flights at Lindbergh Field over the last five years has gone down. The Airport Authority only provides the public with the data that supports their case, but does not release the data that speaks to the entirety of the situation. The Airport Authority also states that there will be a rapid population growth in the county. Where is the information to support this and going back to the previous section, do we want San Diego to become another Los Angeles?

With all of this in mind … NO on Prop A!