Re: 'Airport site selection analysis is comprehensive'

Thella F. Bowens, President/CEO SD Airport Authority, presents us with very ambiguous statistics and Bowens’ partial opinion toward the airport project at Miramar. After all, Bowens is president of the SDIA project, so it makes sense her opinion is misguided and above national interest! In 1993, Clinton decided to downsize the military by closing USMC bases at El Toro and Tustin, which sent those Marines to Miramar and the military then decided to relocate the Navy’s Top Gun program to NAS Fallon in Nevada, not abolish it, as Bowens indicates.

The solutions I presented are legitimate — Bowens just doesn’t agree with them because they defeat the idea of the SDIA project. Larger planes do solve a problem because they hold more people, which allows for fewer planes on the runway = less constrained. Since the airline industry is a free market, the airport just has to revamp their scheduling situation to solve the runway problems. Slot pricing is in essence supply and demand. Increasing demand raises prices and causes less people to want to fly, which creates less passengers = less money for airport. No wonder Bowens hates this idea. As for the smaller airfields having limited acreage, why don’t you just develop each one and then together the three or four of them will combine to create a sizeable alternative.

Bowens tells us if we don’t use Miramar then our regional and personal economies will lose billions of dollars. I wonder where these bloated, ambiguous figures came from. News flash: Our economy is one of the best in the nation and if people wish to keep coming to San Diego to spend their money, they will! San Diego doesn’t want another LAX!

On a side note, Bowens never told us that converting Miramar would cost an estimated $7.3 billion. Also, Congress just put this whole issue to bed by creating a bill to bar a commercial airport at Miramar before misguided voters go to the polls with misguided information from people like Thella Bowens. Now you can change Miramar from a green dot to a red one on your Web site!

David Meyers