Roberts Assails Golding Airport Views

Confronting his front-running rival Thursday in the San Diego mayor’s race, City Councilman Ron Roberts scored County Supervisor Susan Golding for proposing an expansion of Lindbergh Field, and criticized her for subsequently saying that she had not made the remark.

Roberts made an unscheduled visit to the La Jolla Town Council, where Golding was the invited speaker, to highlight Golding’s remarks Monday to a Rancho Bernardo group. He told the group that a new runway would send noisy air traffic north over Mission Beach, Pacific Beach and La Jolla, and worsen an already unsafe situation.

Golding told the audience of 60 Thursday afternoon that she had never called for a second runway at Lindbergh. She said she had only cited a study that explored the idea as part of an overall expansion of Lindbergh.

But Roberts handed out what he said were transcripts of Golding’s statements to the Conservative Order of Good Guys in Rancho Bernardo on Monday.

“I think we need to continue to expand Lindbergh,” Golding is quoted as saying in the document Roberts passed out. “In fact, the proposal to have another runway going north would reduce impacts on Point Loma, both in land traffic and in air traffic--it would add to our capacity. We can do that while the TwinPorts proposal is really pursued.”

TwinPorts is a proposal Roberts is leading to construct a joint airport with Mexico along the international border. Under the plan, Lindbergh would remain open as a commuter airport.

Roberts said he appeared before the La Jolla group because “what’s important to me is that these people, in a timely fashion, find out that what she says in one part of the community is quite different from what she says to them.”

In an interview after her address, Golding said, “I think I said I have seen a proposal for a second runway as a possibility, or something like that. If he’s got a transcript, he’s welcome to show me what I said. I don’t have any problems about it.”

She also accused Roberts of violating Town Council rules for her address by turning the appearance into a mayoral debate. Roberts recently addressed the group by himself. She urged the Town Council members not to listen to her opponent’s version of her ideas.

The confrontation continued the escalating animosity between two of the four candidates in the race to succeed retiring San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor. Growth-management advocate Peter Navarro and financier Tom Carter are the two other major candidates.