Thursday, July 28, 2011 – 09:30 a.m.
InlandPolitics.com has learned that a study performed to evaluate the viability of the San Bernardino International Airport was actually commissioned and paid for by the facility’s governing authority.
The study, conducted by California State University at San Bernardino and California State University at Fullerton, was unique in its timing.
The report was used as a basic “puff-piece” to tout the “potential” future economic benefits from the redevelopment and re-fit of the airport, formally the shuttered Norton Air Force base.
The document emerged just in time to aid the airport authority’s attempt at counter-attacking a scathing San Bernardino County Grand Jury report questioning expenditures and decision-making at the location.
The Inland Valley Development Agency (IVDA), formed in 1990, has been the sole financial life line to the airport re-make.
IVDA has a funding stream from property-tax increment within the agency’s redevelopment project area. An area that extends far and wide
The actual airport makes up a small portion of the IVDA sphere of influence, which extends deep into the City of San Bernardino.
The San Bernardino International Airport Authority (SBIAA), formed in 1992, has direct oversight of airport operations and development.
The boards of both agencies are inter-locking. In other words they are comprised of mostly the same members.
Public reports say $142 million has been sunk into the near dormant facility. However, sources close to the situation say the number is more like $200 million.
The Cal-State report, with very little hard factual independent research, concluded that the airport may eventually attract enough jobs to counter the effects of the air force base closure.
The only problem staring everyone down is the base started reducing active duty operations in 1989, with the last blue uniform departing in 1994.
A elapsed timed period of 17 years.
Over the past year the site of the former military base has become a focal point of criticism and scrutiny that finally reached critical mass this year.
Calls for investigation have continually mounted as allegations bubble to the surface claiming airport funding has been used to line the pockets of politically-connected local businesses .
The continued focus on converting the base into a passenger airport flies in the face of many negative factors.
The most glaring is air traffic control.
What is know as the Terminal Radar Approach Control governing SBIA and Ontario International Airport favors the Ontario facility.
In other words, the location of SBIA makes it a geographically less attractive location for air traffic considerations.
A second issue is the fact that activity at Ontario has dwindled significantly over the past few years.
Ontario is centrally-located and also surrounded by the 57, 10, 60 and 15 freeways.
A third issue? Competitive activity at March Air Reserve Base in Moreno Valley and Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville, also two former active duty bases, has far outpaced SBIA.
More to come…….
I love all the airport experts weighing in. jim you seem to know about everything. legal issues, budget issues, avation industry and now how airplanes land. I know you want Ontario to flourish and San Bernardino to go down, but you are in for some surprises. You will read all about it in jail. I used support you, but it is clear that just like Derry you two live in your own fantasy world of “mr right and mr know it all”
Hey “Airport”. Where are those airlines that should have been landing, what, 3 years ago? Guess they didn’t show huh? How about Mexican Mafia Airlines? It can be brought by your good buddy James Ramos of the “we launder drug money for the Mexican Mafia” Band of Mission Indians with their close ties to all things Mexico? Oh yeah, Josie signed that deal a year ago with the little hombre’s on SBIA contract as their “consultants” to bring a Mexican airline into SB International.
But besides all of that: Where is the F-ing airlines? Even with a $2 million subsidy per airline there are NO TAKERS. As Gomer Pile used to say, “Suprise, Suprise, Suprise!”
Actually, Jim does know alot about many things.
However it doesnt take someone as smart as Jim to know that the SB airport is at this point only a pipedream and throwing hundreds of million of dollars at it wont make it come about because private industry must decide they need it before they start spending money. And they havent decided they need another airport so close to ONT.
The fact that the airport authority paid for some eggheads at the local state univ to do a report justifying all the waste of tax money says a lot. Eggheads are idiots and will write whatever you pay them to. Kinda like John Husing, local economist!
As for Chief Ramos and Mexican Mafia Airlines its pretty clear that everywhere the mexicans go in Calif corruption follows them. The San Manuael Band of Mexican Indians is no exception.
Funny: yeah Mike (bought and paid for by san Manuel) will protect us just like he did when he let off the Barajas siblings who got probation for contracting murders.
No sense of humor what’s so ever around here. Ramos the DA could do
Little at the airport.
Actually Derry does support the sheriff coming over so he and Jim do have some positive feelings about the place.
Let me guess, the airport study done by the cal state team of professional educators, Larry Sharp and Susan Longville! This corruption is what passes for talent at CSUSB> Thanks Al Karnig you vile and despicable crook! You belong in prison with Sharp.
I couldn’t believe the Sun’s headline that this study somehow refuted the grand jury report. Huh? the study and the Grand Jury report are mutually exclusive – the two have nothing to do with each other. Does Don Rogers own the Sun newspaper too? For the last several years the Sun newspaper has been pretty muted when it comes to the Airports shenanigans.
But with this huge fake headline that this fluffy study somehow rebuts the Grand Jury report its pretty obvious that the Sun is part of Rogers camp.