Upfront
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City braces for financial uncertainty in airport takeover Palo Alto hopes to reach deal with county in August over small but busy hub by Gennady Sheyner s Palo Alto prepares to take take over the airport from Santa full control of its namesake Clara County for about eight years, airport for the fist time a process that is finally expected to in nearly half a century, city of- be completed later this year. Both ficials are wrestling with gaping the City Council and the county’s uncertainties about how much it Board of Supervisors are schedwill cost to fix up the small but uled to consider in August a transbustling Baylands facility — and fer agreement for Palo Alto Airwhere the money will come from. port, which hosts about 180,000 The city has been preparing to landings and takeoffs annually.
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Following the operation’s transfer, however, the city will still have to navigate its way through bureaucratic obstacles before the airport becomes economically viable, as council members had envisioned when they directed staff in 2010 to negotiate an early termination of the county’s 50-year lease. The county, which runs three airports, has had a hard time making Palo Alto Airport profitable. According to a 2006 business plan, the county’s investment in
the facility has exceeded revenues by $808,000 in the first 39 years of the lease, which was originally set to expire in 2017. Even in the best case scenario, the airport’s operations will be fueled for at least three years by loans from the city’s General Fund. The council agreed last year to loan $325,000 to the newly created Airport Fund. Earlier this month, the council adopted a budget that raises the sum by $235,000 for a total loan amount of $560,000. The
airport plans to hire a new management analyst (who will earn a salary of $155,000) and spend close to $300,000 on maintenance work, inspections and ground support for the airport’s control towers, according to the budget. The facility is expected to stay in the red at least until fiscal year 2018. The city has at least one big reason for optimism, though. In 2010, ÂVÂœÂ˜ĂŒÂˆÂ˜Ă•i`ĂŠÂœÂ˜ĂŠÂŤ>}iĂŠÂŁĂŽÂŽ
ELECTION 2014
Council race adds one College Terrace resident Seelam Reddy hopes to join city leadership by Gennady Sheyner
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World War II veteran Ned Gallagher, 99, talks with his daughter Mary Gallagher about his memories surviving the attack and sinking of the USS Houston in 1942. He later became a prisoner of war.
HISTORY
At 99, Palo Altan recalls WWII ship’s sinking Ned Gallagher is one of a handful of living USS Houston survivors by Sue Dremann
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eventy-two years after a Japanese ship fired 8-inch shells into the USS Houston, Palo Alto resident Ned Gallagher still vividly recalls how he escaped the sinking ship near the island of Java during World War II. From his battle station near the quarter deck, Gallagher, a U.S. Marine, could see the dark water was just 4 feet below. The bugle call signaled for all hands
to abandon ship, and the Houston was listing about 20 to 25 degrees. He simply stepped off the side and dropped into the sea, he recalled. As his shipmates struggled for survival, Gallagher saw the ship’s chaplain, a man named Rentz, give his life preserver to another man. Then the chaplain drowned, he said. More than 700 men of the approximately 1,000-person crew lost their lives during the
Battle of Sunda Strait. The Houston was the flagship of the Pacific fleet, a successfully elusive target dubbed “The Galloping Ghost of the Java Coast.� It was President Franklin Roosevelt’s favorite ship, Gallagher said. The ship was part of an Allied force that included British, Australian, Dutch and American ships. A few days prior to sinking, the heavy cruiser had taken a few
hits during the Battle of the Java Sea, but it was not enough to knock the ship out. On Feb. 28, 1942, only two Allied ships were still afloat: the Houston and the Australian light cruiser HMAS Perth. Shortly after midnight on March 1, a Japanese onslaught overwhelmed them. The Perth went down first; the Houston fought
s a retired aerospace engineer and a newcomer to Palo Alto, Seelam P. Reddy is at once a perfect representative of the city’s technological might and a total outsider to the local political scene. Reddy, who announced Tuesday that he plans to run for the City Council, is not at all deterred by his status as a political neophyte. He also seems to be the only candidate in the race with no strong opinions about the types of issues that have dominated City Hall conversations in recent years: parking, building density and downtown growth. He is quite confident that if elected, he’ll have no trouble bringing himself up to speed and doing his part to improve the way the city functions. Born in India, Reddy moved to the United States more than four decades ago to attend Texas Tech University. After living in Sweetwater, Texas, he moved to California in 1977 and lived in Newport Beach before arriving in Palo Alto a year and a half ago. His resume includes stints at McDonnell Douglas, Ludlum Measurements, Hughes Electronics and Boeing Company, where he spent a decade before retiring in 2010. These days, the College Terrace resident, who goes by “Sea,� works as a consultant in mergers and acquisitions for VMWare while looking for ways to contribute to the city where he chose to retire. In discussing with the Weekly his desire to serve, Reddy focused on his personal attributes rather on
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