At Burbank and San Jose ...

... two airport initiatives are being revisited. At Bob Hope Airport, officials are again exploring how to impose a nighttime curfew from 10 p.m. to 6:59 a.m. At San Jose, another study is to be conducted to explore the impact of closing Reid-Hillview Airport, which has been under attack for two decades. In both cases, we’ve been here before. Bob Hope Airport, operated by the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, says it has spent more than $90 million of its money and federal grants insulating surrounding homes and schools. Homes on some 60 acres surrounding the airport have yet to be insulated, says the airport. The basis for the curfew proposal is a completed Part 161 study. A 45-day public comment period has been opened, and the airport says it plans to submit the final plan to FAA by this summer. In recent times, Burbank and Naples (FL) have become the poster children for FAR Part 161 noise studies. Part 161 was created as a way for communities to have more control over their local airports; at least, that’s how the communities view it. FAA, on the other hand, actually sees Part 161 as more or less doing the opposite – the long, arduous process by the community generally hits its own roadblocks along the way. Yet, Naples was successful at getting its Stage 2 ban implemented, after years of battle and at the price of a small fortune. Reid-Hillview is another issue entirely. It’s about an airport that sits four miles southeast of downtown San Jose and is operated by Santa Clara County. This is prime real estate, in a county that is facing a $221 million budget deficit. Consider a quote from the San Jose Mercury News in an editorial: “A study of Reid-Hillview Airport is probably inevitable once a decade, given the annoyance of small planes buzzing around East San Jose and the exploding value of that prime acreage near Eastridge mall.†They’ve studied this before. In a reflection of our time, the Mercury News argues that the case for Reid-Hillview, home to some 600 aircraft, centers around its role as critical infrastructure when disaster strikes – specifically, earthquakes. In California, it’s not polite to go around shouting ‘earthquake’ unless you have a good reason. Thanks for reading. jfi