An 18-year journey took one more step to a possible conclusion when the Hollister City Council approved a resolution Sept. 6 to allow Mayor Ignacio Velazquez to sign a $5,800 professional services agreement with Ford Aviation Consultants. The resolution would allow the company to act as a lobbyist and assist Mike Chambless, the Hollister Airport director, and his staff to contact appropriate legislators in order to pressure CalFire into building a new air attack base at the airport.
According to the department summary submitted to the council to support the resolution, CalFire (California Department of Forestry, at the time) entered into negotiations for a land lease of a large portion of the center of the airport in 1998. These negotiations between CDF/CalFire/ the Department of General Services (California’s purchasing department) and the city took 10 years to complete.
The lease for approximately eight acres of land was signed in 2008. This lease, officials say, benefits the airport through increased operational safety, increased fees, and return of a key parcel of real estate. This lease will benefit the community with a doubling of the capacity to handle air tankers operating on a fire, Chambless said in a report to the council. “This would have made a difference in many fire events, including our most recent large fire, the Soberanes fire. Unfortunately, the leased land (which they are not required to pay rent on until the new base is complete and occupied) has gone undeveloped.”
Chambless said city staff intends to discuss this issue with the 56 state legislators for which the air attack base provides service for and request their assistance in getting the new base completed. Ford Aviation Consultants has agreed to provide assistance in this project. “The owner, Carol Ford, is a board member of the California Pilots Association and has access to many of the key individuals we need to speak with. More importantly, she has professional relationships with many of the key legislators.”
The Airport Enterprise fund is the funding source for this project.
The resolution was one of many consent items that are normally approved en masse without discussion, unless a council member or someone from the public asks to have one or more “pulled” for discussion.
Councilman Victor Gomez asked that the resolution be pulled prior to taking the vote on it. He wanted assurance that the business community—specifically the Business Council—was working along with city staff on the economic development plan and CalFire’s part in it. He said that while he fully supported the resolution, he wanted to be sure the business community was kept in the loop.
Councilman Raymond Friend asked Chambless, “If we’re hiring a consultants because they know legislators, and in November those legislators could be gone, when are we going to pay them? It’s going to be three years before they make a decision and most of them are not going to be here.”
Chambless responded that he hoped the decisions would be made sooner than that because CalFire signed the lease eight years ago.
“They (Calfire) are effectively holding the town hostage,” he said. “The fire-fighting efforts (number of air drops) for the Soberanes fires was effectively cut in half because this project was not done. The first stop on this tour is going to be representatives of the Pacific Grove and Pebble Beach areas, with conversations about this issue.”
He said that in talking with legislators, he hoped that CalFire would do what it promised to do 18 years ago—build the base. Friend said that while he understood what Chambless was saying, he questioned whether Monterey should be hiring the consulting firm rather than Hollister.
“With their (lobbying) system I can get right into Sacramento and tell the story to the decision-makers,” Chambless said. “We’ve talked to our local representatives and we haven’t really gotten anywhere. Our Cal Fire Attack Air Base covers 96 representatives’ coverage areas. Those are the people I want to tell the story to because I don’t think they know it yet.”
Friend agreed that they should be told. He also said the council should know which representatives are not helping with the effort.
“They’re part of the reason that fire grew like it did,” he said.
“That is correct,” Chambless agreed, adding, “We were accepting large aircraft for the first two days of the fire, but the taxiway has failed (caved in) because it wasn’t built to handle aircraft that large and we had to turn them away. As a result, they cut the response time of that one plane in half. It’s a one-hour turnaround at Paso Robles; it’s a 30-minute turnaround at Hollister, and that one plane carries three planes’ worth of material (fire retardant).”
After Chambless’ comments, Gomez made the motion to approve the resolution and it passed unanimously.
Chambless told BenitoLink on Sept. 8 that CalFire proposed 18 years ago to expand the air base, but has never moved forward. He also clarified what he meant when he said CalFire was holding the town hostage:
“They signed a lease with me eight years ago and I just want it done,” he said. “There’s no rent until they complete the base and they’re operating from it. They have carved out eight prime acres in the middle of the airport for 50 years and will not give us a penny until they build the base.”
Chambless said there has been no movement on CalFire’s part for years.
“It’s hung up on this guy’s desk or that guy’s desk, or there’s no money, or it’s not a priority,” he said. “The person (Ford) who we are hiring is the lobbyist for the California Pilots’ Association, so she’s in and out of these offices all the time, and she’ll be able to get me into those offices to tell our story. And as soon as some of the people who these fires have been affecting hear the story, I’m sure they’ll light a fire under the people at CalFire and get something done.”
A CalFire spokesperson did not respond to questions before press time.