I was just forwarded this from my flying club. They've decided to stop
accepting FAA funding, along with its 20 year strings to keep the
airport open.

==========================


from Heather Wagner and your club scheduler at
http://www.AircraftClubs.com/ ...

From: Peter Carpenter
To: "Bob Lenox"

Subject: Updated Action Plan for June 6 Palo Alto City Council meeting
regarding the future of PAO -added Transportation Master Plan info
Sent: Friday, June 3, 2005 9:13 AM

The Palo Alto City Manager has refused to co-sign a grant
application for Federal funds for the Palo Alto Airport. This decision
has profound financial and long term implications for the airport.

Background:

Palo Alto has had an airport for more than 80 years. The first
airport was on Stanford land, the second near Embarcadero, the third at
the site of the present Golf Course and then it was moved to its
current location and significantly down sized in order to allow the
building of the Golf Course.
The land is owned by the City of Palo Alto and is leased to the County
of Santa Clara for the operation of the Airport. The 50 year lease
agreement between the City and County for the operation of the Palo
Alto airport expires in 2017. All FAA grants require a 20 year
assurance. Since the lease expiration date is only 12 years off, the
City of Palo Alto must agree that the airport will continue in
operation beyond the current lease time frame. Who and how the airport
operates is not material, simply that the it will continue as an
airport. The Palo Alto City Manager has just refused to cosign the most
recent grant application.

As a part of Palo Alto's transportation and recreation infrastructure,
the airport requires periodic maintenance and updating. The money that
was being applied for is generated by fees paid for by users, coming
from the FAA's Airport Improvement Program funds. The grant application
was for pilot actuated lighting, new weather reporting equipment, and
some fencing upgrades. The City Manager, by his refusal to cosign the
grant application, has caused the cancellation of the current grant
request and jeopardizes Federal grants already received. As much as $2
Million has been lost by the City Manager's decision. No city or
general taxpayer money is at stake here.

The airport is an important part of our community, valued not only as a
business and recreational facility that helps make Palo Alto a special
place, but also recognizing the economic benefits the infrastructure
allows. The airport is specifically included as an essential element of
the long standing Palo Alto Baylands Master Plan. The Transportation
Master Plan of the City of Palo Alto, available at
http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/compplan/transport.html, states this
policy
T-57:
"Support the continued vitality and effectiveness of the Palo Alto
Airport
without significantly increasing its intensity or intruding into
open space
areas. The Airport should remain limited to a single runway and
two fixed
base operators."
Palo Alto also has a long standing mutual sharing agreement with
Sunnyvale that Sunnyvale will provide Palo Alto with waste disposal
facilities in return for Palo Alto providing a local airport. The City
Manager did not consult with Sunnyvale regarding his unilateral
decision to abrogate that Council approved agreement nor did he consult
with the Palo Alto City Council regarding his decision to act contrary
to the Council approved Baylands Master Plan. The City Manager did not
consult with the public, with the airport community or even the City
sponsored Joint Community Relations Committee for the Palo Alto Airport
regarding his decision. This unilateral action by the City Manager and
his comments to the press that Palo Alto has no interest in the airport
threaten the long term existence of the Palo Alto Airport and have
seriously jeopardized, if not destroyed, any trust that might have
existed between the airport community and the City Manager.

Just as years ago the decision not to dredge lead inevitably to the
closure of the Palo Alto Yacht Harbor, this decision to reject Federal
funding to maintain and improve the airport has started us down the
same path. Unless the airport community rises up en masse to protest
this shortsighted, unwise and unauthorized decision by a City Manager
(who should be concerned with preserving City assets and managing a
deficit budget rather than turning away Federal funds) there will not
be a lease extension or an alternative long term stewardship for the
airport and the airport will be allowed to slowly deteriorate until it
will eventually no longer be functional.

This is not an idle threat -- unless we act NOW the City Manager has
started down a road towards closure of the Palo Alto Airport. Rumor has
it that he wants the airport land for other uses -- fortunately it is
not his land.


City Council:
The City Council's next meeting is June 6 at 250 Hamilton Ave. and it
begins at 7 PM. Each meeting opens with public comments and each
speaker is allowed 3 minutes to speak. Please arrive a few minutes
early to fill out a speaker's card which must be given to the City
Clerk. After all the airport advocates have spoken and the Council gets
ready to move on to its regular agenda, the airport advocates should
stand up and leave en masse to demonstrate our numbers. Please plan on
attending and speaking at this meeting. Please pass this message on to
all of your airport friends. Bring your family and neighbors. Be
polite, concise, respectful and resolved. (I will unfortunately be
attending a meeting, of the United States International University
-Kenya Board on which I serve, in Nairobi on the 6th, so I rely on the
rest of you to carry the torch.)

What the Council needs to see is righteous indignation by a lot of
people for the City Manager's decision not to co-sign the grant
application, for his total failure to consult with anybody and for his
failure to understand the importance of the Palo Alto Airport.


It is vital that all members of the airport community express their
personal views on this issue.
This will be democracy in action -- each person should speak their own
mind and from their own script, but speak we must. Our silence or
absence will be a clear sign of acquiescence to the City Manager's
decision.


The Council should be urged to pass a resolution endorsing the long
term existence of the airport, as affirmed in the Baylands Master Plan
and as embodied in the regional services agreement between Palo Alto
and Sunnyvale ( Palo Alto will provide an airport and Sunnyvale will
provide a waste management facility), and directing the City Manager to
figure out who is going to run the airport -- the County or a new
Special District or whatever.


Draft Resolution The Palo Alto
City Council hereby reaffirms, consistent with the Baylands Master Plan
and Palo Alto's regional sharing agreement(s), that the Palo Alto
Airport is an essential long term transportation and recreational
component of Palo Alto's infrastructure and that no actions which
adversely impact the Palo Alto Airport shall be taken without Council
approval.