Palo Alto Airport Needs Your Help

Dear Fellow Airport Supporters:
It’st “crunch time”. Monday night, the Council will consider what we have to say regarding PAO and its’ future. There is a serious danger that they will take the cautious, bureaucratic “wait and see” approach of wanting more data, studies, and time, before postponing a decision yet again…..all the while not accepting Federal Grant aid while the physical plant deteriorates. We need to do the following two things, and I ask that each of you do so!

FIRST:
Write the Council members, at: [email protected] and let them know that WE NEED THEM TO REAFFIRM THE CITY’S COMMITMENT TO HAVING AN AIRPORT FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE. Simple, yet apparently difficult for this body. We need an affirming vote Monday night.

If you know one of the Council members personally, please contact them and tell them that we need them to step up now and say, yes, we will have an airport, and yes, the City Manager can sign FAA Grant Assurances.

Some have suggested that waiting for the County’s Master Plan, and/or the Baylands Master Plan, is just good management. This is dithering delay. These documents are forward-looking planning documents, and nothing in the current Grant Applications violate the current applicable Master Plans. The City needs to simply affirm that it plans to have an airport. We don’t have to know, Monday night, who is going to operate the airport, or how it going to be run, to commit to having an airport. These are separate issues, and the former can be studied and planned for over the next several years, after the Council has reaffirmed that there will be an airport.

SECOND:
We need a large showing at the meeting Monday night. Please plan on attending!!! We’ve done a good job so far, and now we need an even bigger audience to demonstrate to the Council, and the community, that this resource is worth our time and energy to preserve.

Many of us have put in quite a bit of effort to get to this meeting; let’s have a good push at the finish line! Monday July 11th, 7 pm in the evening, 250 Hamilton Avenue Downtown Palo Alto.

Best Regards,
Bob Lenox
AOPA ASN for PAO