Alcohol Task Force is perfect forum for debate
The recent hullabaloo in The Peninsula Beacon about Councilman Faulconer’s Beach Alcohol Task Force (and the people appointed to serve on it) reveal the real reason why this task force is important.
This task force creates a genuine forum for this important neighborhood discussion. It enables us to have this conversation in a civilized and smart way. Over the last many years there has been a wide variety of questions, letters, articles, votes, and shouting from the sidelines, that haven’t really gotten us anywhere on this issue. The Beach Alcohol Task Force pares good neighbors and activists together with the attention and moderation of our councilman (something the debate never had before). This combination will take us on a path to solutions.
Though I was not selected to serve on the task force, I will participate in it because I know we need this debate. I invite neighbors to participate also and bring their questions, and letters, and articles, and votes, and shouting from the sidelines to this honest conversation.
Bill Heilmann, Pacific Beach

Airport concerns
The San Diego County Regional Airport Authority has stated that an international airport at Miramar operating 24 hours a day would have minimal noise impact on the surrounding communities as indicated by their calculated noise contours. When selling a new airport to the voters of Denver in 1988, Mayor Pena stated, “no existing residential areas of Denver, Adams County, and Aurora will be adversely affected by noise.” Within ten months of opening in 1995, Denver International Airport had 66,742 noise complaints, some in areas 30 miles away. This happened despite the airport being built 26 miles from Denver on 53 square miles of rural prairie. Mr. Pena, then Secretary of Transportation, was forced to acknowledge that the noise contours were invalid. He ordered night flight restrictions and altered flight paths to reduce noise impacts. The Miramar noise contours similarly underestimate the effect of aircraft noise on surrounding communities. Unfortunately, San Diego most likely will not have an ex-mayor as Secretary of Transportation to come to our rescue. To make sure this does not happen here, vote No On Prop A.
Richard J. Prutow, Ph.D., M.D., University City