SFO and SF Mayor Brown

From: David Nelson (dnelson@hooked.net-DeleteThis)
Date: Sun Mar 19 2000 - 15:49:33 PST

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Message-ID: <38D5678D.C9DB50A0@hooked.net-DeleteThis>
Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2000 15:49:33 -0800
From: David Nelson <dnelson@hooked.net-DeleteThis>
To: "wind_talk@opus.hpl.hp.com-DeleteThis" <wind_talk@opus.hpl.hp.com-DeleteThis>
Subject: SFO and SF Mayor Brown
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from The San Francisco Examiner, Thursday, March 16, 2000:

S.F. mayor wants airport to fly right

By Ilene Lelchuk
OF THE EXAMINER STAFF

Mayor Brown, who until now has been watching from the sidelines as the
proposed runway expansion at San Francisco
International Airport slugs along, is taking matters into his own hands.

Brown said he is assembling a team of experts to usher through a plan to
expand SFO's two side-by-side runways and
ultimately erase its reputation for having the worst delays in the
nation.

"I know that will be one of most difficult goals to achieve, so I moved
the runway project into my office," Brown said
this week, just before leaving for an international mayors conference in
Paris.

Brown, who is recruiting team members, figures his political clout here
and in Sacramento will propel the proposed
project through the myriad approvals it needs.

"This is to speed up the process," Brown said. "Because the decisions
are basically political, you're going to run the
gauntlet of (federal and state jurisdictions), and it's going to require
some specialization."

This isn't the first time the mayor has stepped in when he thought
things were moving too slowly. In 1997, he hired a
troubleshooter to expedite construction of Mission Bay.

After nearly two decades of false starts, construction crews are
expected to break ground this year for Mission Bay's
6,000 homes. A UCSF campus there is already under construction.

A welcome surprise

Brown's plan to assemble a team for the runway expansion came as a
surprise to airport officials and members of the
Airport Commission, which has many Brown appointees.

"I heard rumblings about it," said Commissioner Mike Strunsky. "Mr.
Brown is very good about moving projects
along."

Commissioner Henry Berman, who hadn't heard anything about Brown's
plans, added, "I think the mayor is impatient
and rightly so."

San Francisco airport officials announced their intention 18 months ago
to lengthen runways to reduce delays, decrease
noise and make room for a new generation of jumbo jets.

Since then, they have been looking at how to do so: filling in the Bay
to create new runways, building a floating runway,
using pile-supported structures or trying something else.

An international design contest in under way now, with nine groups in
the running, and about half will be eliminated in a
few weeks by the airport's blue-ribbon panel of judges.

San Francisco officials and the Federal Aviation Administration are
studying how the expansion will affect the Bay and
surrounding communities. That study might be complete by the summer of
2001, airport spokesman Ron Wilson said.

Construction could take five to seven years.

Wilson said neither he nor SFO Airport Director John Martin had heard
about Brown's new team.

Environmental angle

Paul Revier, spokesman for Save the San Francisco Bay Association, hopes
that the mayor includes environmental
experts on his task force.

The arm of the Bay where airport officials are considering filling at
least 2 square miles is one of the most diverse parts
of the estuary — home to Pacific herring, northern anchovies, surf
perch, salmon, steelhead and wintering diving ducks.

"It sounds like Willie Brown really wants the airport to go forward
quickly. ... If that helps bring to light the issues we
are concerned about, good," Revier said.

But, he added, a panel of scientific experts predicted last year it
could take up to five years to study all the biological
impacts of the runway project.

"The idea of speeding up the process runs counter to this three- to
five-year process to evaluate what the effects might
be," Revier said.

Will Travis, executive director of the Bay Conservation and Development
Commission that will review the final
proposal, said he doesn't see how it can go faster. "They are still
trying to design runway configurations and doing
environmental analysis," Travis said.

Brown is already running into his first roadblock: finding experts
willing to commit up to two years on his team.

The group will report directly to the mayor.

"Their job is to get the runway authorized," he said.

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