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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024
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Senate Bill Ends Six-Figure Salaries to Airport Authority’s Triumvirate

The nine members of the San Diego Airport Authority know change is in the works, but just what type of change has yet to be decided.

The agency that operates Lindbergh Field and proposed that the best site for a new regional airport last year was at Miramar is the subject of a bill that would restructure the governing board, how its members are appointed, and strip its three executive board members of six-figure annual salaries.

Last month, Senate Bill 10 proposed by Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, passed the state Senate, and is expected to be adopted by the Assembly later this summer before being signed into law.

Kehoe said she introduced the bill last year, not in response to the Miramar vote (which was defeated by 62 percent of San Diego city voters), but because of a plethora of criticism regarding the agency’s lack of communication with other government agencies and the public.

“I felt that the Airport Authority in 2005-2006 was not very responsive to the public,” said Kehoe. “There was a lack of communication between it and other cities and the county; between it and military bases; and between it and local businesses.”


Key Changes

As the bill stands today, the key changes are making all Airport Authority’s board members elected officials; eliminating appointments by the governor and the county Sheriff, and transferring those positions to the county’s Board of Supervisors; and eliminating the salaries to the authority’s three paid members.

It’s the salary provision that caused many to question the authority’s structure and makeup when it was separated from the Port of San Diego in 2002.

The board is composed of nine members, including an executive committee of a chairman and two vice chairmen, each of whom receives an annual salary of $171,000.

Kehoe’s bill would pay all members the same stipend, tentatively set at $150 per meeting. It’s a provision the current executive members are willing to accept.

Robert Watkins, the owner of an executive search firm and one of three members of the executive committee, said eliminating the salaries is something the board already agreed to.

“There would only be a single tier of compensation. Everybody gets paid the same, but the stipend is still something that has to be negotiated,” he said.

Another part of the original bill that was amended involved the ability of the airport authority to control land use planning for Lindbergh Field and the other regional airports it manages.

Previously, the bill gave that power to another regional planning agency, the San Diego Association of Governments, or Sandag.

Despite the changes, Kehoe said she’s satisfied with the bill. “My goal with the bill was to improve accountability of the Airport Authority, and save the taxpayers money and the heart of the bill is still there.”


Authority’s Mission

At last week’s board meeting, members talked about making the authority’s mission and its meetings more accessible to the public.

The board is considering broadcasting the meetings over public access television on a delayed basis at an estimated cost of nearly $48,000 annually.

Alan Bersin, the board’s chairman and former U.S. Attorney and San Diego school superintendent, said the agency needs to do more public outreach, and that it can’t invest too much in having a public record.

Responding to recent criticism regarding published reports of the airport authority’s board and staffers’ spending habits for travel and dinners, Bersin said he didn’t think the numbers deserved the sensational coverage.

“To think that $466,000 over four years is something that is considered excessive or scandalous is part of the politics of this issue,” Bersin said.

The authority is in the midst of reviewing and changing its policies covering spending on such items as trips to professional development seminars, the payment of relocation fees for recruited executives, and entertainment expenses.

Bersin also retorted that he didn’t take kindly to recent criticism of his staff over future plans for improving Lindbergh Field.

The criticism by county Supervisor Ron Roberts concerned apparent changes to the former master plan for the airport that called for building a new terminal along Pacific Highway that has been apparently abandoned.

Roberts, who is also chairman of Sandag’s transportation committee, said the plans adopted by the Port District, which oversaw the airport before the airport authority was formed, called for a terminal at Pacific Coast Highway near Palm Avenue, a multi-story parking garage, and a trolley stop.

Now the airport authority apparently wants to build 10 new gates, along with setting up a shuttle system for passengers coming from the existing terminals, Roberts said.

He said he has never received any explanation about what happened to a strip of land the port acquired from the Marine Corps to be used to taxi planes to and from the new terminal on Pacific Coast Highway.


No Explanation

“There’s been no explanation on why the airport no longer has that easement (for the taxiway),” Roberts said. “In my frustration at the Sandag meeting I said that if no one is willing to explain this, then perhaps we should have a grand jury look into it.”

In other matters, the airport authority unveiled its 2008 budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 which calls for a 6.5 percent increase to $145 million.

The new budget includes an increase of 25 new jobs, including nine positions in development and seven new administrative positions to bring the total staff to 386 people.

Among the largest increases in next year’s budget is in the area of safety and security which was boosted by $2 million.

Another driver called air-service development that includes marketing, advertising, consulting and promotional activities is being increased by $719,000 to bring that area’s spending to about $2 million.

The authority anticipates collecting nearly $200 million in revenue, most of it from airline landing fees, parking fees, concession fees, and leases.

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