By Clarence Cromwell
The Monte Sereno City Council is putting its weight behind opponents of a plan to land commercial cargo jets at Moffett Field, passing a resolution that asks NASA to give the city a say in the issue.
The May 7 resolution, passed at the urging of community activists, also asked that the airfield correct "safety hazards" that have been allowed because the field was constructed before current rules were written.
The Moffett proposal is related to a nationwide move to allow commercial landings on U.S. military bases.
The Department of Defense plans to draw more commercial cargo carriers into the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) program, which uses commercial planes to support major military missions. The Defense Department offered its military fields to commercial cargo lines that pledge aircraft to the reserve fleet program. NASA wants Moffett to be one of the fields the commercial fliers use because it's looking for partners to share the costs of the its huge airstrip, currently operating far below capacity.
NASA hasn't yet negotiated a price for airstrip use with the cargo haulers, but the administration hopes to land the first commercial flights at the beginning of the
1996 Christmas mailing season.
Despite reassurances from NASA, Alliance for a New Moffett Field, a group of West Valley residents, predicts that cargo jets descending to the airport will roar loudly over Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Campbell, Sunnyvale and parts of Saratoga 24 hours a day. The group maintains that noise from the jets would affect residents in a four-mile-wide swath across the five cities.
Moffett lies about 11 miles north of Los Gatos, and the jets begin their descent just before they pass over the city, unless they approach the airport from the north.
Other city councils show similar concern. Sunnyvale and Mountain View are also asking NASA to protect residents from noise, but they want Moffett to remain a federal air strip. Officials fear that if the federal government can't find money to support the field, it could be abandoned and then converted to a commercial airfield, probably with three times the traffic.
Los Gatos, the least-affected community under the airfield's landing pattern, is watching, but hasn't taken any action on the commercial flights, said Town Manager David Knapp.
Monte Sereno City Councilman Jack Lucas said he wants NASA to "put some controls that other cities enjoy over the amount of traffic that is entitled to come."
The environmental review of the plan is complete, and NASA will hold a meeting July 10 to take public comments on the environmental assessment at Sunnyvale City Hall.
Information about the commercial landings is available on Moffett's Web page: http://ccf.arc.nasa.gov/jf/mfa
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, July 3, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved