Voters Will Also Decide Airport Issue

Although most attention in Tuesday’s Torrance election has focused elsewhere, voters will also decide on Measure C. The proposal would change city accounting procedures for money earned from the Torrance Municipal Airport and its adjacent commercial properties.

If passed, the measure would repeal a portion of the City Charter that requires the money to be kept in a separate airport fund used to pay airport bonds and other expenses. The fund was approved by voters in 1957. It kept the city from financial responsibility for the bonds, making only the airport and revenue it produced liable for the borrowed funds.

The bonds will be paid off in March, and city officials say the protection of the charter provision is now unnecessary. They have called the ballot measure a “housekeeping” move, which would simply place airport funds under the same accounting practices used for other revenues produced by the agencies in the city’s Transportation Department.

Currently, airport operating revenues are spent on the airport, though much of the additional revenue from the businesses--car dealerships and shopping centers--on airport property are spent on other city obligations. The airport runs at a surplus when revenues from these businesses that are not related to aviation are included in its balance sheet.

Under state law, airport monies would still have to be placed in a separate account, city officials have said, though the City Council would have greater discretion in spending them.

But some pilots, who have clashed with City Council members in recent months over airport operations, say it is the first step by the city in a possible campaign to close the airport.

In the ballot argument against the measure, Barry Jay of the Torrance Airport Boosters Assn. says changing the charter will make city residents liable for the cost of operating the airport.