Ten Reasons Why Using Mather Airport as a Cargo Hub is a Bad Idea

1. The Sacramento region is rated amongst the worst air quality regions in the nation. Encouraging jumbo jets to rain down thousands of gallons of spent and/or raw fuel on a residential neighborhood 24 hours a day is dumb.

2. Allowing jumbo jets to fly at night over a residential area is insensitive, and against the law in many sensible communities. It’s gross noise pollution, and it is the number one complaint in every city in the country.

3. Enterprise zones for international business are now being consolidated adjacent to Sac Int’l airport and the Port of West Sac. Locating remote connection point 20-25 miles away does not make any sense.

4. Sacramento County Board of Supervisors’ own business model for Mather shows only a 2 to 3% return on investment in twenty years. That doesn’t even keep up with inflation.

5. The millions of dollars being spent on runway and infrastructure at Mather could yield ten times the return if used to encourage clean industrial business instead.

6. Freight is a low wage, automated business. Loading and unloading of any kind requires very little skill: bar codes and conveyors do most of the work.

7. There is very little spin off to the freight business. It does not generate ancillary operations, except jet fuel and truck fuel sales.

8. Every community on the west coast has been against an air cargo hub in their area. What do the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors see that other communities don’t?

9. There has never been a request from the public for this operation. There is no mandate for this facility. What is the motivation for this?

10. This will condemn our area to a future of noise and air pollution, low wages and reduced home values. It is a waste of millions of our dollars.