San Jose, California’s Reid-Hillview Airport (KRHV) is, once again, in the news — for all the wrong reasons.
On second thought, has it ever not been in the news?
On a search for an unrelated story among our decades of archives, I happened upon a June 1990 edition of General Aviation News & Flyer (as it was then called). It was mailed on Friday, June 22, 1990.
Look at the top headline: Reid-Hillview Airport may close.
The story starts by reporting, “The Santa Clara Board of Supervisors is acting to close the San Jose (CA) Reid-Hillview Airport in answer to complaints from neighborhood action groups.”
Wow, does that ever sound familiar.
Steve Remington, an operator at the airport at that time, stated, “There are groups in the area that are pressing for the closing for ‘safety’ reasons. The city and county are powerless to solve the real social problems of the area – drugs and crime – so they throw up a smoke screen.”
“Neither the city nor county want to say ‘this airport must stay.’ Instead they will say, ‘we tried to close it but the FAA overruled us.’”
I wonder if the neighborhood action groups were complaining about leaded fuel.
Makes me think, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
If you can’t read the images, below is the text of the article.
Reid-Hillview Airport may close
Politicos caving in to pressure groups?
By Jay Wright
SAN JOSE, CA – The Santa Clara Board of Supervisors is acting to close the San Jose (CA) Reid-Hillview Airport in answer to complaints from neighborhood groups.
Debra Wetter, spokesperson for the Santa Clara Department of Transportation, said, “Actually the board voted on a declaration to close the airport. What this does is to set the staff in motion to search out the issues so they may be resolved before it goes to the board for a final vote.”
Wetter could not estimate when the matter would be presented to the board.
“The board is encouraging us to act quickly and the County Council is working hard to resolve the problems.” Wetter added that there is nothing explicit in any of the federal contracts or grants that spell out how many years the airport must remain open.
Steve Remington, an operator at the airport, believes that the proposed closing may be a political move.
“There are groups in the area that are pressing for the closing for ‘safety’ reasons,” Remington said. “The city and county are powerless to solve the real social problems of the area – drugs and crime – so they throw up a smoke screen.
“Neither the city nor county want to say ‘this airport must close.’ Instead they will say, we tried to close it but the FAA overruled us.’”
Reid-Hillview was established in 1939 as a private airport. In 1962 it was purchased by Santa Clara County. In later years it was annexed by the City of San Jose but it remains under county administration.
There have been 6 million flight operations since the county took over. There were 200,039 in 1989. At present there are 10 FBOs and 533 aircraft based at Reid-Hillview.
At the time the airport was purchased by the county the area was surrounded by farm land. Since that time the city has grown up around it and there is a large shopping mall 1,300 feet from the south threshold of the dual runways. There have been some off-airport accidents in recent years, but no one on the ground has ever been injured or killed.
San Jose International Airport, recently selected as a hub by American Airlines, lies six miles to the northwest of Reid-Hillview. The traffic patterns do not overlap and Reid-Hillview is the reliever airport of choice.
American Airlines, which says it plans to invest about $100 million in its base, was reportedly promised that Reid-Hillview would remain open as a reliever airport.
The Reid-Hillview Pilots Association announced it plans legal action to keep the airport open and is asking pilots in the area for donations for legal fees. And John L. Baker, president of the 300,000-member Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, pledged his organization’s support.
“We are extremely concerned by recent action taken by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors to close Reid-Hillview Airport,” Baker is quoted in a written statement.
“Such drastic action by the county shows a deplorable lack of understanding of how important Reid-Hillview Aiport is to the county and the city of San Jose and ignores the national ramifications that such action could bring.”
Join the Save Reid-Hillview Airport Group and social media pages to stay involved and help us push back against some local officials trying to close the airport!
Website: https://www.savereidhillview.org/index.html
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SaveReidHillviewAirport/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/savereidhillview/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Save_RHV
Nextdoor: https://nextdoor.com/g/z3w6jw00m/
Youtube Channel : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiRsxcsJKPu_GcMGM-fwM4Q
Also sign the Save Reid-Hillview Airport Petition: https://www.change.org/p/support-reid-hillview-airport-and-improve-a-vital-community-asset
Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got until its gone?
How much has that airport been used for fighting fires that were threatening San Jose, or Los Gatos, etc? What was that airport being used for right after the 1989 earthquake that damaged most of the bridge supports in the area? Those bridges were all closed until CalTrans could get them inspected and get them scheduled for a wrap and bolted. I lived south of the airport and worked in Sunnyvale. One of my co-workers was working on his multi-rating back then. Before I was able to start on my PPL.
But when it all goes down hill fast, the elected people who did it won’t be around to be held responsible or liable. This is why the FAA has to actually take city councils or the city itself to court to get orders to force them to comply with the contracts they have signed. It only takes one to get to the Supremes where they get whacked over the head for them all, regardless of state, realize they have to abide by that contract they willing signed.
Airplane noise. What a lame excuse.
Go to any neighborhood and drive around with your windows open. Neigh ors running lawnmowers, blowers, edgers, weed whackers…and unable to hear the Lycomings or Continentals that fly overhead (I, too, live close to an airport) until the lawn equipment is shut off.
Complain? No. They don’t mind that noise.
That’s the true, Michael Crognale!
I remember back many years renting AA!’s and Cessna 150’s at KRHV and buying 80 octane gas it was a cheap way to learn.
It isn’t just the developers salivating at the prospect of high priced houses. It is also the city (quietly) salivating at the prospect of the ongoing and ever-rising PROPERTY TAXES on those high priced houses. Taxes are like crack cocaine for governments – there is NEVER enough, they are insatiable.
The cities are short-sighted. They only see tax revenues NOW, and do not understand that even though they might not maximize the available taxes on the airport property, the airport is one of the things that brings people and businesses to the community and they buy the high priced houses in the surrounding area.
Cities that are 100% housing are revenue negative, houses by themselves do not bring in sufficient revenue to maintain the city’s finances. There needs to be commercial and some industrial property as well. Eventually, in an “all houses” city, the taxes get so high as to be punitive and people begin to move away. As more and more people move out, the tax base decreases and the city’s revenues spiral down to oblivion.
This is what is happening in the rust belt – the tax base is so narrow and the taxes are so high on what little remains that nobody wants to move there and everyone who is left wants to leave. City services become nonexistent, crime rises, infrastructure deteriorates and fails.
Gobbling up the local airport for short term gain is a recipe for exactly this sort of economic death spiral in the future. The developers don’t mind because they are like locusts – get in, get out, get paid, and what happens “later” isn’t their problem because they got theirs. The vast majority of elected officials are mostly interested in the next election (this is at all levels of government, not just local) and good governance and problem solving invariably take a very distant back seat to getting re-elected.
I’m involved in local government and economic development, so I see this from both the inside and the outside, this isn’t just social media ranting and raving.
Remember – the power to tax is the power to destroy.
You are correct, just look at Detroit. Look at any small rural town. They are becoming ghost towns. Just a few years ago you could live and survive in most towns in the USA. Now, no car dealerships, no groceries, John Deere is gone, no clothing stores and so on. Just houses and a lot of those houses are small and do not generate much tax base.
We want our kids to have a better life, go to college, get an education. They do and they don’t come back.
Land use debates in urban areas are understandable and universal, not unique to any one state. California is the most populous state because there is a tremendous amount of goodness here. Bashing us is fashionable in some quarters these days, but it’s a childish and unhelpful response. The inconvenient truth is: many airports that become surrounded over time by residential areas will likely come under some pressure to move out. Its not a surprise. I’m a pilot—like many of you—that chooses not to live right near my own airport because I’m not fond of constant airplane noise. If I’m a pilot that doesn’t want to hear constant airplane noise, imagine how non pilots feel about it. Throw in news stories about crashes near airports (eg. El Cajon), leaded fuel fears, and pressure from land developers wanting to make money, and you can understand the pressures on airports to pack up and move out. It’s not a happy thing for us pilots, and we should fight it—like RHV did in 1990—but let’s refrain from bashing entire states. Instead let’s acknowledge the actual challenges we face as GA pilots and work together to solve them to the greatest extent possible.
It’s California. They are, by definition, stupid. Bottom line is that there are developers who are salivating at all that land that can be turned into high priced housing. Follow the money.