June 22, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

Editorial: Dogfight to save Palo Alto Airport

When Palo Alto City Manager Frank Benest declined to sign an important grant application recently, he touched off a furious effort by partisans of the Palo Alto Airport to save their slice of the baylands.

Benest did the right thing -- because the terms of the grant would have exceeded the terms of the city's lease with the county, and there are reported doubts about the airport's financial viability in a post-9/11 world.

But its historic value is undisputed. The airport opened at its baylands location on July 4, 1935, after moving from an earlier 1923 site on the Stanford University campus -- the present site of the football stadium's parking lot.

Typically, it took a lawsuit by noise-weary residents in 1934 to force the move to the then far-distant baylands, then part of San Mateo County until San Francisquito Creek was relocated in 1963. Santa Clara County leased the airport from Palo Alto, making it a county operation -- now reportedly losing money. Yet airport officials report just a handful of noise complaints per year.

In 1929, the Federal Aviation Administration designated Stanford University as Aviation Ground School Number 1, reflecting its long relationship with the airport, and in 1945 Palo Alto High School began offering aviation instruction through its own ground school.

In 2001, the airport was rated the busiest single-runway airport in the nation, perhaps the world. It had become home to the world's largest nonprofit flying club, a world-class builder of airplane engines and a healthy assortment of flying-related businesses, as well as home to an array of local pilots and their planes.

The county in 2001 had recently completed a $2.7 million renovation, resurfacing the runway and taxiway, restoring some wetlands and improving safety.

But the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington brought the Palo Alto Airport to a virtual standstill, with takeoffs and landings dropping by half even after tight flight restrictions were lifted. Airport business plummeted to a quarter to a third of that on the bright July 4 anniversary that year.

Now the fate of the airport awaits the county's airport master plan, currently promised by September despite a task force completing its work months ago and the city asking for it for some time.

The City Council is expected to consider the airport's status, with an update on the county master plan, on July 11. A timely push to assure the airport's future is in order.

Editorial: Ravenswood trustees owe an explanation

The abrupt resignation of LaDawn Law as superintendent of the Ravenswood Elementary School District after just one year leaves many questions unanswered -- and we believe both Law and the school board owe the public an explanation. It is not enough to simply accept her resignation, as the board did earlier this month.

When Law, 60, joined the district a year ago she vowed to focus on improving reading and test scores, and said she wanted to work in a district with challenges. We're sure she got her wish on the latter.

She succeeded Interim Superintendent Floyd Gonella, who led the district ably for two years following the forced resignation of former Superintendent Charlie Mae Knight, which ended her 17 years as head of the oft-troubled district.

Prior to Knight's tenure, the district was plagued with short-timers -- with an astounding 13 superintendents coming and going over a 12-year period. The consequent lack of leadership, organization and direction cost a generation of children of the community more than can ever be measured.

Knight brought a stability for many years, even though her later years there were plagued with allegations relating to her aggregating too much power and by a court order forcing her to better serve special-needs children.

The troublesome aspect of Law's sudden departure is whether it's truly a personnel matter (hence confidential) or whether policy issues are involved about which the public should -- and has a right -- to know. The "new" school board was elected prior to Knight's departure on a platform of reform and openness -- and the board's silence now seems to be a negation of those promises.

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