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Frustrations over Palo Alto’s efforts to upgrade its airport soared at a public hearing on June 20, where critics assailed city staff and consultants for failing to involve East Palo Alto residents and local environmentalists in the plans.
The tense meeting, which brought around 60 people to the Baylands, centered on the city’s ongoing effort to create a master plan for Palo Alto Airport on Embarcadero Road. As part of the plan, the city is considering modifications that the small but bustling airport would need to undergo to accommodate a projected increase in flights and emerging technologies like electric planes that can lift off vertically. The airport today accommodates about 160,000 takeoffs and landings annually, according to city figures.
“When you’re looking at how many operations are happening on this airfield, with only one runway, the airfield is almost at capacity,” said Kim Fabend, a consultant with C&S Companies.
While the city has yet to pick a preferred alternative for modifying the plan, its five alternatives include options that would extend the airport’s lone runway and, in some cases, place the runway on top of a newly constructed levee. One option would extend the runway into the Baylands, requiring the city to fill the duck pond. Another would shift the runway so that it runs immediately next to a popular recreational trail.
But for many of the roughly 60 people who attended the public hearing, the details mattered less than the broader picture. Even though the city has held four prior public hearings, many residents contended Thursday that officials had inadequately publicized these meetings. Some attendees said they hadn’t heard about the project until they read about it in this publication last month.
While city officials maintained that their goal is to make the airport safer for its users, many of those in attendance urged staff and consultants to do a better job considering the impacts of any proposed changes to residents in communities around the airport, most notably the city of East Palo Alto.
Numerous speakers objected to the fact that none of the materials that the city presented at the hearing to display the various alternatives depict the neighborhoods of East Palo Alto near the airport. This struck many as an apt metaphor for the residents’ views being ignored.
For Heather Starnes-Logwood, the airport project hits particularly close to home. She alluded to the 2010 airplane crash in East Palo Alto that killed three people and took out power lines that supplied electricity to Palo Alto.
“Raise your hand if you had a plane crash on your street and burn down the neighbor’s house and hear the cries of the pilot screaming for help. … There’s a street here that’s been traumatized and it’s not even on the site map,” Starnes-Logwood said.
Elena Kogan, a resident of East Palo Alto, received an ovation after she suggested that it’s her city that will be forced to bear the negative impacts of the airport project, and the more affluent residents of Palo Alto would reap the benefits.
“All the inconveniences associated with airports such as pollution, noise and accidents that kill people are going to be borne by us here in East Palo Alto, but really the airport is used by people who can afford to have a private plane,” Kogan said.
City officials and consultants repeatedly reassured residents that they are not moving ahead with any plans to expand the airport and that whatever option they ultimately choose would need to be consistent with city policies that aim to protect the environment. The city’s Comprehensive Plan, for example, specifies that the airport be limited to a single runway. That policy is reflected in all of the alternatives.
Even so, some of the attendees questioned the city’s commitment to environmental stewardship. Members of the nonprofit group Environmental Volunteers, which is based in the EcoCenter in the Baylands, were taken aback at an alternative showing a portion of the duck pond getting filled.
“People are really concerned that the things that they love are going go away,” said Deborah Lindsay executive director of Environmental Volunteers. “We don’t care so much about whether or not corporations or wealthy community members can fly in and out at leisure. What we care about is the quality of life in this community.”
East Palo Alto City Council member Lisa Gauthier, who also attended the Thursday meeting, said she is particularly interested in making sure that the city’s plans protect the marsh and take care of the environment around the airport. Residents are just now learning about the airport plans, she said. She acknowledged the tension in the room and the inherent challenge for city officials in holding a meeting that both presenting alternatives and allowing people to be heard.
“I know people are really nervous,” Gauthier said.
East Palo Alto isn’t the only neighboring city where residents are growing concerned about the airport’s growth. Menlo Park Mayor Cecelia Taylor said she is concerned that Palo Alto’s plans for the airport could bring more noise and health impacts to neighborhoods in such as Belle Haven and the Willows, which are on the east side of the city and which already experience the city’s worst air quality and highest asthma rates.
When asked in an interview whether she favors any of the alternatives presented at the meeting, Taylor said she would prefer the “do nothing” alternative when it comes the growth.
“Just develop healthier guidelines,” Taylor said. “They should do that before pursuing any of the alternatives.”
Others at the meeting pushed back against the criticism and touted the airport’s value as a training ground for commercial pilots and its role in providing space for “life flight” helicopters and other aircraft that bring in patients for treatment at Stanford University’s medical facilities. Ben Hochman, a pilot who uses Palo Alto Airport, said he wished the airplane community did a better job talking about the facility’s role in providing critical medical care.
“The pilot community wants what many of these concerned citizens want,” Hochman said in an interview. “They want to do a better job about flying quietly so that neighbors can appreciate having the airport’s benefits and they want to get rid of lead because it’s bad for the environment.”
Michael Mashack, an East Palo Alto resident and pilot, said he has been working with airport staff for years to address the noise and environmental complaints. The facility, he said, is a place where East Palo Alto youth can train to become pilots and air traffic controllers. Mashack urged patience in addressing the concerns expressed at the meeting.
“It’s kind of like a ship,” Michael Mashack said. “We’ve got to turn the ship. And they recognize it and I think you hear it even more now.”
“Even though the city has held four prior public hearings, many residents contended Thursday that officials had inadequately publicized these meetings. ”
Having served on and a Chairman of the former Palo Alto/Santa Clara County Palo Alto Airport’s Joint Community Relations Committee for over a decade I can only wonder why concerned citizens do NOT pay attention when public hearings are widely announced and then they complain that they were not personally spoon fed information about those hearings.
If you choose to be apathetic it is not the public agency’s responsibilty to give you a do over. Democracy works when people pay attention.