Oxnard Airport

As a Thousand Oaks resident and a commercial pilot, I urge those proposing the closure of Oxnard Airport to snap out of it!

By recommending this foolish proposal, they are deceiving themselves into thinking that society should undo advancements in technology. Air travel is such an advancement and with it goes a place to land and take off. Airports have to exist somewhere, and it is only due to foolish city planning that permits development right up to airport boundaries that we get into this argument.

The sky-is-falling attitude is so preposterous that it is almost laughable. One has a better chance of being hit by lightning than a falling aircraft, and pollution is relatively minuscule, so let’s not obscure the issue with these. What this is all about is noise and property values, to which I respond that these conditions existed prior to development.

Oxnard Airport is needed if this county wants to attract more business and alleviate some stress on the overcrowded freeway system. It is a far better thing to save this valuable asset than to remove it and later wish you had it back.

MICHAEL PATLIN

Thousand Oaks

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At a recent Oxnard City Council meeting, I pointed out that BMW had indeed built a facility in Oxnard.

I quoted an April 30, 1999, Times article headlined “BMW to Build Testing Center in Oxnard” as saying the firm would “spend $28 million to build the 78,000-square-foot -center. . . . It will be the company’s largest engineering hub in the state and one of the biggest in the nation.” BMW “will also invest an additional $1.2 million into expanding and retooling its existing center to meet increased demand.”

In his article “Fighting Over Oxnard Airport Won’t Solve the Problem” (Ventura County Perspective, Oct. 8), Steven L. Kinney, president of the Greater Oxnard Economic Development Corp., now concedes, “The good news is that BMW has built a new facility . . . contributing dollars and jobs to Oxnard.”

Ironically, the facility built here moved away from Marina del Rey, which is near Los Angeles International Airport.

According to the quoted BMW manager, Oxnard was chosen because of “competitive land prices, standard of living, skilled labor pool and proximity to Los Angeles and a deep-water port.”

We don’t need Oxnard Airport to attract BMW. They’re already here.

HAYDEN RILEY

Oxnard Shores