POINT MUGU : Panel to Receive Glum Airport Study

A report predicting that few or no airlines would move to a military-civilian airport at the Point Mugu Navy base was accepted Wednesday by a regional planning authority studying the proposed facility.

Compiled by an Ohio consulting firm, the $22,000 report was rejected by analysts of the authority--the Southern California Assn. of Governments, or SCAG--for being too negative. It was to be sent back to the consultants for further work without first being presented to members of the Point Mugu Airfield Investigative Committee, a group of officials studying the joint-use proposal.

Tim Merwin, SCAG’s chief aviation analyst, said the committee will see the document after all.

“We are not economists, but we still wanted to attempt to verify the report’s conclusions,” Merwin said. “Since we have received it, we are now coming to the same conclusions as reached in the report.”

During Wednesday’s meeting, Don Hollingsworth of Camarillo asked whether SCAG was in the business of censoring studies paid for by public funds.

“If these reports don’t come back to your liking, will you send them back? Isn’t this just censorship? Aren’t they public documents?” Hollingsworth asked.

The report indicated that no major airline initially would agree to move to the seaside airfield. Written as an internal draft, the contents of the report were made public last week after inquiries by news media.

The consultant’s report will be released to the committee at its Feb. 16 meeting.