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Sunnyvale residents lobbied against commercial air-cargo operations at Moffett, prompting their city council to reject the idea. The Cupertino City Council followed suit last week, unanimously voting against the controversial use.

Cupertino City Council rejects air cargo at Moffett

Decision supports earlier Sunnyvale council choice

By Pam Marino

The Cupertino City Council last week unanimously rejected the idea of commercial air-cargo operations at Moffett Federal Airfield, which could possibly create noisy skies for Cupertino and Sunnyvale residents in the future.

The idea of opening up Moffett runways for commercial cargo traffic was raised last year when NASA officials prepared an environmental assessment of the issue. NASA is looking for a money-making operation to erase an estimated annual deficit of $3.5 million.

Fearful of the noise such operations might create, the cities adjacent to Moffett, Sunnyvale and Mountain View immediately got involved in the issue, along with Los Altos and Los Altos Hills. A Community Advisory Committee (CAC) was created to study the issue; Cupertino Councilmember Wally Dean served as an alternate on the committee.

After months of meetings, the CAC issued a report outlining the "generally acceptable," "conditionally acceptable," and "not acceptable" future uses of the airfield. Generally acceptable uses included air shows, research institutes, a research and development and light industrial park, film studios and an air and space center. Conditional uses included a Coast Guard station, a golf course and housing. Among ideas listed as unacceptable were a new 49ers stadium and a prison.

The CAC placed air-cargo operations in the "conditionally acceptable" column. While the Mountain View City Council accepted the report as is, the Sunnyvale City Council amended it, stating that air-cargo operations would not be acceptable at all.

At its Jan. 5 meeting, the Cupertino City Council accepted the report that Sunnyvale amended. Councilmembers were dubious, however, that any decision by the surrounding city councils would have a serious impact on NASA's future plans.

"I'm warning you, don't set your expectations too high; this is the federal government," Dean told his fellow councilmembers.

Dean traveled to Washington, D.C., last year with other CAC members to try to convince NASA to forget about opening Moffett to air-cargo traffic and instead host an annual air show. He called the meeting "very frustrating" and suggested that NASA officials have already made up their minds on the subject. "I think someone may have another agenda," he said.

Councilmember Don Burnett said he hoped that by taking a stand against air-cargo traffic, it would "at least put pressure" on NASA. He said that should NASA officials decide to allow cargo flights, pressure from cities could convince them to not fly over South Bay cities, using a route over the San Francisco Bay instead.

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, January 14, 1998.
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