Pinocchio Chronicles: Should the County Airports Director be Fired?

Did the County Counsel – the Board of Supervisors legal adviser - tell County Airport staff it could tell the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that McClellan-Palomar Airport would become an FAA-rated D-III airport? If so, why? County airport staff had no authority to say so.

When approving the 2021 twenty year Palmar Master Plan, the Board told airport staff and the public Palomar would stay a B-II airport. The Carlsbad Council in 2019 told county it opposed a D-III airport. After Citizens for a Friendly Airport (C4fa) opposed the original 2018 Board action to make Palomar a D-III airport, Superior Court Judge Pollock told the Board in 2021 that county needed Carlsbad consent to reclassify Palomar as a D-III airport.

In short, it seems that the FAA and county airport staff want to end run Judge Pollock’s ruling. How do we know this? Because after repeated demands from C4fa to county staff, staff coughed up a Palomar fur ball: the near final FAA Palomar Airport Layout Plan (ALP) draft. The ALP, consisting of detailed 15 page+ industrial sized drawings, shows the current and future Palomar airport classifications. You guessed it. The draft shows an ultimate Palomar D-III or higher designation.

If the facts above are true, the County Director of Airports should be fired. If the facts above are true, the County Counsel should immediately release for public review any County Counsel written opinion explaining why the County Counsel told the Airports Director he could exceed his authority by telling the FAA Palomar would become a D-III airport.

Upcoming Carlsbadpatch articles will explain many things. Why ALPs are the FAA bible that justify FAA airport grant awards. Why ALP-bible thumpers should not lie to Congress to get FAA grant monies under false pretenses. Why the county and FAA, without official Board approval or Carlsbad consent, want to falsely claim that Palomar will become a D-III airport. Why no county staff may contradict county, Carlsbad, and court actions. Why the troubled County Counsel Office – which has had 4 recent leaders (Montgomery, Bunton, Eldridge, Silva) – needs to do law, not politics. And why county airport staff and the FAA - following the lead set by Boeing 737 Max jets management - continue to ignore whistleblowers.