Air/Space America Wants City Council to Reconsider Canceling Show

Claiming that “inaccurate information” led the San Diego City Council to cancel the 1990 Air/Space America show at Brown Field, organizers of the aerial exposition and trade show announced Monday that they will ask the council to reconsider its decision.

“I love San Diego, and I want the show there forever,” said retired Rear Adm. Bill Walsh, president of Air/Space America. “If we can generate the support and get an agreement to stay there, we would delightfully stay here forever.”

The council voted in closed session last Tuesday to cancel the 1990 show, citing an auditor’s prediction that the debt-ridden nonprofit corporation that staged the 1988 show would still owe creditors $4.8 million even if the 1990 show is successful.

The council also voted to withdraw $300,000 in hotel tax funds that it was prepared to spend on the show.

Councilmen Bruce Henderson and Bob Filner, whose support would be crucial to a reconsideration of the vote, said Monday that a change of council opinion could come only after Air/Space America satisfied city officials that its financial management had greatly improved and that it would be able to pay off more than $4 million in current debts.

Council Needs Assurances

Henderson, who chairs the council’s Public Facilities and Recreation Committee, said the council needs assurance that the 1990 show will not face the kinds of problems that made the 1988 version so controversial.

Although its organizers consider the 1988 show a success, they owe creditors more than $4.2 million, according to a review of their finances conducted by Deloitte, Haskins & Sells, a private accounting firm hired by the city.

They have yet to pay for an estimated $100,000 damage to Brown Field or hand over a $100,000 rent payment to the city. At least eight firms have sued Air/Space America to recoup losses, and nine have asked the city to pay them a total of $1.4 million in debts.

“Based on the evaluation of their plan (for 1990), we don’t have any confidence in them,” said Filner, whose council district includes Brown Field. “We don’t want to pour taxpayers’ money into something that wastes it.”

Organized by Walsh and former Congressman Bob Wilson, Air/Space America was envisioned as a biennial event designed to be America’s answer to the famed Paris air show. About 200,000 people attended the 1988 show, which included trade booths, paratroop jumps, aerial acrobatics, $985 rides on the supersonic jet Concorde and tours of the Soviet Union’s AH-124 transport, the world’s largest aircraft.

Thought He Had a Deal

The decision to seek council reconsideration represented a significant change in tactics since last Wednesday, when Walsh predicted that he would reach agreement within 45 days to stage the show in Palmdale or Ft. Worth, Tex.

Walsh said in an interview then that he was negotiating with Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich to stage the show in Palmdale.

But Thomas Silver, Antonovich’s chief deputy, said Monday that Wilson had met just once with Antonovich to brief him about the air show’s history and size. Asked if a deal could be arranged within 45 days, Silver responded: “I’m not sure if I could see a deal at all.”

Officials with a firm owned by Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot, whom Walsh claimed Monday is willing to underwrite an air show in Ft. Worth, could not be reached for comment.

At a press conference Monday, Walsh and Wilson disputed the size of their current debt, claiming to owe about $2.9 million. They said that Deloitte, Haskins, & Sells’ report was based on out-of-date information contained in a Sept. 30 audit conducted by the city.

However, the report shows that the city audit was just one of the materials used in compiling the conclusions.

Walsh also disputed the report’s projections for the 1990 show, claiming, for example, that his organization will raise $1 million from a booster’s club headed by Steve Garvey, and that it has already convinced creditors to forgive $175,000 in debts.