Panel Urges Rejection of Camarillo, Oxnard Airport Privatization

Joining a chorus of opponents, members of the Ventura County Airport Authority recommended Thursday evening the Board of Supervisors abandon a proposal to privatize the Camarillo and Oxnard airports.

“If we really want to be practical about this issue, we could go on and on and it would never fly,” Ventura County Supervisor John Flynn said.

“My feeling is we ought to just drop the issue now,” he said, and other members agreed.

“This is now a dead issue,” Flynn said, adding that the Board of Supervisors would have needed a four-fifths vote to override the authority’s recommendation.

The authority, which consists of two supervisors, two city council members each from Camarillo and Oxnard and two public representatives, voted unanimously to reject applying to the pilot program.

Even after the county’s consultant sang the praises of several other public-private airport partnerships, authority members heavily criticized the plan to apply to a federal program that could make money for the county.

“The Board of Supervisors now makes decisions [about the airports] without fiscal complications,” said Bill Liebmann, Camarillo’s representative on the eight-member board.

“If the pilot project is pursued, there then becomes a potential financial incentive” for decisions that could hurt the airports, Liebmann said.

Some of the 150 people who attended the meeting also berated county officials for committing $90,000 from an airport fund to pay for consultants on the proposal--an amount $10,000 under the sum for which review by the Airport Authority and approval by supervisors would have been necessary.

“We want to know how much longer county officials would have kept this a secret,” said Howard Maroz, vice president of the Camarillo Hangar Assn. “Why should we trust them when they had total disregard for our opinion when they were starting this whole process?”

Steve Steckler, president of consulting firm Infrastructure Managing Group Inc., told the skeptical group the program would not eliminate local control, increase fees faster than inflation or cause layoffs. And long-neglected airports would be quickly improved, he said.

But several authority members agreed with community members who said too many unanswered questions about the Federal Aviation Administration’s pilot program remain.

“I’m not opposed to privatization,” said Howard Harder, a Camarillo aviator. “The present management has failed to do its job . . . but it’s to the detriment of the airport to hire some carpetbaggers from out of town and out of state to come in here and tell us how to run the airport.”

The county has also been accused of “back-room” politics, because while county staff members began looking into the pilot program in July, city officials did not learn about the plan until Oct. 3.

“I want to apologize to the cities,” Flynn said. “It was an absolute flaw . . . not have been briefed when this whole thing started.”

Only five airports nationwide will be selected to participate in the program, which would grant the county an exemption to federal law that requires all airport revenues to be reinvested in airport operations.

Supervisors have moved the date from Tuesday to Nov. 11 to consider whether they should move ahead with a four- to six-month study to evaluate a public-private partnership, submit the preliminary application and request operators to submit proposals.

The meeting was the second in as many days at which the county’s proposal was criticized. Wednesday night the Aviation Advisory Commission voted 5 to 3 to recommend that supervisors not ask private operators for proposals nor submit a preliminary application to the FAA, which is due Dec. 1.

In addition to citing the potential of increased air traffic and noise pollution, commission members made clear their skepticism rested on a basic distrust of the county.

“We haven’t been fairly dealt with,” said commission member Ward Fredericks of Westlake Village. “We haven’t been fairly informed and this isn’t the way to start something like this.”

Although the three members who wanted the county to proceed with their plans said they were attracted by the potential of improved facilities, others said it was not privatization they opposed, but rather the way in which the county appears to be rushing into the program.

Several of the more than 60 people who attended the meeting agreed.

“To me, a pilot program is a test program,” said Bill Melly, spokesperson for the Experimental Aircraft Assn. “Your questions have not been answered satisfactorily. They worked around them. I’m not against privatization, I’m against rushing into it.”

The controversy even caught the attention of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Assn, based in Frederick, Md., who sent a California representative from Yuba City to address the commission.

“I’m not opposed to a public-private partnership,” Jack Kemmerly said. “But I do object to the pilot program. . . . It is for one purpose only and that is for the county to be able to divert funds from the airport.”