Alan Bersin has set aside his former bully pulpits to preside over Lindbergh Field's future as chairman of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. (photo/lambertphoto.com)

Alan Bersin, the new chairman of the embattled San Diego County Regional Airport Authority, former state education secretary, San Diego City Schools superintendent and U.S. Attorney, likes to be in control. Right now he is striving to control public discussion of the future of his board, rather than looking back at his predecessors who spit in the wind during the vote for a new airport site and initially dealt ham-fistedly with local planning agencies when influencing development adjacent to the region’s 16 airports.

The mostly new group, as Bersin controls the discussion, has “consensus” as its middle name.

Bersin agrees to be interviewed one-on-one for this feature. But when a reporter arrives at Bersin’s office, fellow executive committee members Bob Watkins and Charlene Zettel are right there. Each of the trio is equally important to this new era of inclusiveness, says Bersin, so all needed to participate in the interview. Umm. OK. Both will make good interviews and were already on the list.

Watkins is tight with a business community that understands how the airport spins the economy and Zettel was a member of the state Assembly who voted against splitting off management and assets of Lindbergh Field from the San Diego Unified Port District; she then spent 18 months on the original airport board. Later, when photos are being shot on the roof of Terminal 1, Bersin hesitates to allow his photo to be taken individually, lest he appear on the cover by himself.

Charming and mostly on-the-record candid, whether the subject is airport matters or the dismissal of U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, Bersin always is careful about his image. The trek across the terminal’s roof means stepping across lines of white plastic piping and climbing up and down several narrow aluminum ladders. The effort leaves white smudges on his dark suit. He brushes them away without complaint. But no way is he going to stretch out his arms in a manner that suggests an airplane — too lighthearted — and no way will he let a photographer shoot him with arms stretched affectionately around Watkins and Zettel.

But he would smile. And that’s a good thing. Lacking the bully pulpit of some of his former positions, Bersin must do a lot of smiling between now and early May to avoid a serious clipping of the authority’s wings. That’s because Senate Bill 10 by state Sen. Christine Kehoe would, as originally conceived, strip the airport authority of its land-use powers and revamp the nine-person board to include instead seven elected officials, a move that also would eliminate the three executive committee slots that each pay $171,000 annually.

At the same time, challenges are mounting to the timing and details of a master plan for San Diego International Airport, where a near-term gate crunch looms and long-term gridlock threatens.

Without the omniscience of the U.S. Attorney’s office, nor a battered, bare majority as he had most of his time on the school board, Bersin is ready to test the coalition skills he learned while a corporate lawyer and brought to the task of repairing Gov. Schwarzenegger’s fractured relationship with state education leaders. “I much prefer coalition building and cooperation,” he says. “I also understand that occasionally a case has to go to trial and a fight has to go 15 rounds.” Probably best of all, he finds “joy in tackling very knotty difficult issues.”

A Matter Of Good Timing

The timing seemed right when Bersin was asked by Mayor Sanders to join the authority’s executive committee. “I was interested in coming back to San Diego,” says Bersin. “I had been commuting to Sacramento just over 18 months. With the revitalization of the governor’s position in the (political) center and the very significant education agenda that had been accomplished, I felt that I had made the contribution that the governor had wanted.”

Sanders, who also has since named Bersin to his charter review committee, had known Bersin since Sanders was police chief and Bersin was U.S. Attorney. “I just think Alan is extremely smart and politically savvy,” he says. “These are the kind of qualities we need for somebody who is going to lead the airport authority right now.”

So what attracts a corporate lawyer turned prosecutor turned education leader to aviation? “The common thread is public service,” Bersin says. “Fifteen years ago after a career in corporate law I began working in federal government. It was consistent with a lifelong sense that I was very fortunate to have the opportunities provided by this country and that every generation is required to hand over this society in better shape than we received it from the previous generation.”

Working With Thella Bowens

At the airport authority, Thella Bowens runs the operational show as president and CEO, leaving Bersin without the hands-on direction he had enjoyed in the past. No problem. “I am quite familiar with the difference between the role of a board and the executive director,” he says.

In the wake of November’s sound defeat of the idea of moving the airport to Miramar, his CEO has not been immune to criticism for her agency’s role in that election. Bersin, however, says the airport under Bowens’ management is “almost universally admired by aviation officials” and regularly earns major awards and high satisfaction ratings by users.

“Thella is a management asset in the first order to this community,” Bersin says. “Anyone who discounts that needs to rethink their assessment.”

Zettel is more cautious in her support of existing operations. “While Thella and her team have received many awards we can always strive to improve our customer service and our service to the traveling pubic,” she says.

Learning On The Job

Former Assemblywoman Charlene Zettel, back on board the Airport Authority, says the airport's existing services can be improved. (photo/lambertphoto.com)

After he and Watkins joined the board, they began to meet often with the community. “The job of the new board was first to repair the divisions of the past,” Bersin says. “Having experienced a bitterly divided school board, it struck me that we needed to build a cohesive board that had relationships and trust and confidence that really went deep that were not simply ‘we all get along’ but were rooted in a common approach to the aftermath of Miramar.”

Among their first two conclusions was that people had voted not just against Miramar, but for Lindbergh, and that any speculation about interest in military bases needed to be quashed. “We basically had to reestablish what at the San Diego Military Advisory Committee was called a ‘detente with the military.’ This airport authority has no design on military land, not at Pendleton, not at MCRD and certainly not at Miramar,” Bersin says.

Zettel, who in March joined the authority as Schwarzenegger’s representative, is no novice to the agency. She was appointed to the original board in December 2002 and served until August 2004 when the governor tapped her to run the state Department of Consumer Affairs. When she looks back on her vote to oppose the agency, she feels like she predicted the outcome.

“My feeling at the time was there had been many, many studies and a lot of money had been expended and they certainly had not resulted in a new airport site,” she says. “I thought that the mandate to do another study was not the best use of resources.” But she also now believes in the agency’s mission.

“I am impressed that the authority, post November’s election, has expanded its outreach to the community to heal the wounds,” Zettel says. “Airport disputes are not unique to San Diego County. Orange County went through a huge battle over El Toro. We are not the only ones with constrained airport capacity. All of Southern California is facing this. Even Los Angeles International has cut back. Our greatest challenge is not just what Lindbergh and its capacity present to the region, but I believe we have an opportunity to work with regional planners throughout California.”

Zettel also has come around in her support for the agency. “In retrospect I do see the wisdom of a strong airport authority with authority over airport planning needs throughout San Diego,” she says. The primary mission is protecting the safety of San Diego residents and pilots. “I also see a strong need to protect San Diego International Airport as a vibrant part of our economy, not only for the region but the state of California,” she says.

The Implications Of SB 10

While the airport authority board has voted to support the idea of a legislative revision of its mission, it so far opposes the idea of moving the regional planning function back to Sandag, the San Diego Association of Governments. “What we have agreed on is this bill should be the vehicle for making improvement to the authority so it is better able to make accomplishments,” Bersin says. Watkins is working with SDSU to gather information on how other authorities, nonprofit and private-sector boards are organized, managed and compensated. “This is an issue where I am confident there needs to be a change,” Bersin says.

Bersin says accountability is a big question. “(The issue is) whether in fact you ensure accountability by having elected officials exclusively, or whether that decreases accountability because, with all due respect, elected officials have many duties (and the operation of an organization can) become entirely staff driven.”

Indeed, accountability came up during Kehoe’s March 23 appearance before the board when authority board member Ramona Finnila noted that the two members absent that day were elected officials. Kehoe was unmoved.

“I still think looking at elected officials is a very worthy way to go,” Kehoe responded. She praised the way the authority board now is reaching out to the community, but says that is due to “the people at this table.” To assure continued outreach, the board needs to be more closely tied to the electorate, she says. “What remains to be addressed is how we can tie aviation planning and regional transportation planning together,” says Kehoe.

Watkins says the airport’s $9.5 billion contribution to the region’s economy got lost in the legislative mandate to vote on a new location and is getting lost again in the SB 10 debate. “Opinions are like noses; everyone has one,” he says. “Oftentimes people are sticking their opinions into things that confuse issues. What our role is here is to synthesize everything the community had to say about Prop. A and then think about the higher good of the order and that is the economic development plan for the region. How does San Marcos fit into this? How do Alpine and El Cajon? How do Chula Vista and San Ysidro as well as the North County? We have to synthesize all of that and try to come up with a plan for the region.

“Unfortunately, and I’m going to be very candid, SB 10 is another distraction. I do think that we are going to get through that distraction and come up with a futurist proactive concept for the board and it is not probably going to make everybody happy, but we are going to do as good a job as we possibly can. But there is a ton of work to do. And right now we are bursting at seams, not necessarily in capacity, but in the ability of delivering passengers to airplanes and airplanes coming to gates.”

With the Kehoe legislation, Zettel says she is “open to whatever is approved by the Legislature and signed by the governor.” Yet she also sees the need for full-time positions during the master-planning. “I certainly don’t see that changing in the next couple of years,” she says. “What the compensation is, is out of my control.”

Planning For 2012 And 2037

A key new appointment to the Airport Authority is Bob Watkins. He says a state bill to revamp the board and strip its land-use powers is not the way to fly. (photo/lambertphoto.com)

With passenger growth at San Diego International Airport expected to grow from today’s 18 million a year to 24 million a year, the challenge is accommodating them at Lindbergh. “How do we work on supplementing the capacity of Lindbergh by investing in the footprint and also by investing with the other 15 airports we have in the county,” Bersin says.

Gesturing out the window and across the runway from a small conference room at authority headquarters, Watkins notes you can see trains, trolleys and cars. “All of that has to be integrated into our plans,” he says. “And that maybe hasn’t been as spelled-out as it should be.”

To free up bayfront, Watkins is interested in moving the rental car operation to the Pacific Highway side of Lindbergh and perhaps installing some type of people mover to reach existing terminals.

By fall, or perhaps even summer, Bersin expects the authority to be ready with both a short-term plan and a procedure for long-term planning. The new board also is grappling with how fixed-base operators that serve corporate aircraft and other non-commercial flights fit into its plans.

Long-time FBO Jimsair has been trying for about a decade to expand, first when the airport was controlled by the port, but has been stymied by the bureaucracies. The authority now is looking at leasing space to one or two operators.

Noting that corporate aviation accounts for 1 percent of passenger volume but 6 percent of take-offs and landings, Watkins wonders about the future of FBOs at busy commercial airports. “Should it be here at all?” Watkins asks. “I don’t know the answer to that.”

Bersin says the FBO issue needs to be looked at regionally with what is happening for corporate aircraft at other airports.

Controversy is inherent in airport planning. Bersin is pushing for the addition of 10 new gates roughly within the existing terminal layout. “We hit a crunch by 2012-13, so the first issue is a Phase One of what we have to do to get this airport ready so that service levels are not compromised in seven years.”

Phase Two, as he sees it, would involve Lindbergh’s master plan and the region’s plan. For the county, he envisions the authority’s planning staff partnering with the San Diego Association of Governments, the state Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and other jurisdictions in developing a regional plan. For Lindbergh, that may mean moving the terminals across to Pacific Highway, putting them closer to freeway exits and rail lines.

Some say the time to start planning to move the terminals is now. One of those is former state Sen. Steve Peace, who wrote the original legislation breaking the port bureaucracy into two, and who now has joined with county Supervisor Ron Roberts in advocating that the bayside of the airport be part of an active greenbelt that will stretch south to the Coronado Bridge.

“Alan is a great guy, but he is following the same well-worn path of his predecessors by allowing staff to lead him (toward) throwing good money after bad,” says Peace. “He has the cart before the horse. The airport board needs to take a definitive vote committing to moving operations to the Pacific Highway side. Thereafter, they can evaluate staff’s recommendations about how to best phase in that shift. But until staff is told in no uncertain terms that this is the new policy, everything staff proposes is tainted by the reality that no one is evaluating cost/benefit based upon the assumption that we are moving.”

Bersin says Peace is wrong in concluding the short-term improvements will somehow prejudice the long-term planning effort against Pacific Highway. “I think Steve assumes that decision forecloses options,” Bersin says. “That is not so. I have a view that Phase One should be limited to 10 gates.”

Overcoming A Planning Flub

Long before 62 percent of the voters rejected the airport authority’s ballot measure for moving to Miramar, elected officials from throughout the region who had one of the 15 airports besides Lindbergh in their jurisdiction were rejecting their treatment by authority planning staff. The same legislation that gave the authority an airport siting mandate, also gave it powers to oversee land-use surrounding the county’s airports. When cities and developers saw long-worked plans being seemingly summarily dissed or dismissed, they went public with their ire.

Bersin says those days are history, but also show how capable the agency is at handling a complicated planning function. “After the ham-fisted effort at the beginning, under the leadership of Paul Nieto as vice chair, this authority put together something called the A-TAG, an advisory group that represents all the jurisdictions and all of the agencies and all of the developers.”

The acronym stands for Airport Land Use Compatibility Plan Technical Advisory Group. “People have come forward and said this is the best land planning agency in the state,” Bersin says.

Fate In The Balance

The long-term overhaul of San Diego’s air transportation system, with Lindbergh Field as its heart, is of most importance. But the fate of the authority governing board will be decided much sooner. A respected veteran in the Legislature, Kehoe holds the hammer. The question is, how hard is she likely to bang it if the three key institutional players — the city of San Diego through the mayor’s office, Sandag and the Airport Authority — don’t come around to her desires to put elected officials exclusively on the board and move the regional planning power back to Sandag?

Zettel, the former assemblywoman, says legislators give deference to another member’s regional bill, but also do want to hear from the local officials. “It is not always a slam dunk because it is a regional bill,” she says.

Sanders supports changes at the airport authority and says the original group “was doomed from the beginning” by the mandate to put an airport issue on the ballot. At a meeting where Sandag directors decided to delay a vote on SB 10, Sanders urged caution, saying the board should have at least one aviation expert on it. The mayor has worked with Kehoe since she was on the City Council, when he was the police chief and a resident of her district. Sanders says Kehoe has promised she would be willing to make amendments to SB 10 “right up until the vote” and that he expects the legislation to be something the city agrees with. “Sen. Kehoe has said she wanted to create a bill that we could sign off on and I take her for her word,” says the mayor, an elected official with a bigger district than Kehoe’s.