=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SF Gate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/c/a/2003/05/14/BA135175.D= TL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, May 14, 2003 (SF Chronicle) SFO helps farmer spin hay into gold/Airport pays $327,000 a year for option= to buy North Bay field Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross We can't tell you how San Francisco International Airport managed to spe= nd $74 million planning new runways, but we can tell you that one hay farmer up in the North Bay -- 36 miles from the airport -- is nearly $700,000 richer. All for doing absolutely nothing -- and from the looks of things, farmer Jim Haire hasn't seen the last of the airport's cash crop. Just last week, in fact, airport brass -- while agreeing to put the runw= ay planning in a holding pattern for at least three years -- also urged that Haire continue to be paid $327,000 a year for a nonrefundable option to buy his 1,100-acre property . . . someday. No, farmer Haire's hayfield isn't on the airport's flight path -- but it is part of the obstacle-laden mitigation path that the airport has been following in its costly pursuit of those new runways. Why? Because, as it turns out, in order to drop tons of landfill into the bay for the planned runways, the airport is required under federal and state law to make an environmental trade-off. The idea here is to buy Haire's property on Skaggs Island, straddling the border of Solano, Sonoma and Napa counties, flood it, and turn it into a wetland along with the rest of the island. In the meantime, the airport is paying Haire $27,250 a month just to make sure nobody else snatches up his hayfield. Wildlands Inc. -- a for-profit land trust based in Sacramento -- also is getting a $6,700-a-month commission from the airport for handling the deal. And its business looks to continue booming. Wildlands Vice President Craig Denisoff says the amount of swapable wetlands in the Bay Area is shrinking and competition among developer clients who need trade-off property is heating up. So while Haire's property probably would have sold for just $2,000 an ac= re a decade ago, the airport's option is for $15,000 an acre -- or about $16 million total. That's nothing, Denisoff says. "In the South Bay, we've seen land mitigation values going for $20,000 to $30,000 an acre." Then again, from the looks of things, Wildlands itself has played a role in creating the demand. After all, Wildlands worked with the appraiser that helped set the value of the Cargill Inc. salt ponds in the South Bay -- the property that the feds just agreed to purchase for $100 million, and that the airport also hopes to help restore into wetlands as part of its runway mitigation effort. As for farmer Haire, even he admits he can't see the need for laying down new runways, given the slowdown in air traffic. On the other hand, he supports turning his land into wetlands -- and unt= il the airport came along, nobody seemed interested in paying him top dollar. Haire's family has farmed the property for 60 years, he says, and "this = is the only time we've been able to get a value that I think is fair." No matter what happens, Haire already has come up a big winner. Either he'll collect that $16 million or -- if the airport deal does fall apart -- he'll keep every cent of the $700,000 he's collected so far. Not to mention that there's a three-month termination clause. "They can stop anytime," he says. "But it's sort of like if you go out a= nd buy a car. If you put a deposit on it and then decide you don't want it, would you get your money back?" By the way, when contacted Tuesday, airport officials declined to discuss their plans for continuing the option payments. SFO brass is going before the Board of Supervisors Finance Committee on Friday, said airport spokeswoman Kandace Bender, "and the discussion will take place then." TALE OF THE TICKET: Goals, quotas, targets -- whatever you want to call them, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown is fighting mad over a report in this column Monday about parking supervisors being told to write 40,000 extra tickets in the next 45 days to help raise money for the city. And as is usual when Da Mayor is blindsided, he's taking swings in all directions -- including a few at us. In an interview with KTVU, Brown alternately: -- Blasted his parking enforcement chief, James Howard, saying he needs = to be retrained for even bringing up the idea of ticket "goals" -- let alone talking about them in the newspaper. -- Took aim at us for publishing what he called a phony memo that provid= ed the minutes of a May 6 meeting in which Howard told parking supervisors he wanted them to start writing 500 tickets a day. The memo -- which was on official DPT stationery -- went out to traffic supervisors but reportedly was pulled back within an hour of its release. Howard doesn't deny he talked about his desire to boost the ticket count to deal with tough economic times. But he has emphasized that he was only setting goals, not quotas or targets. "That's just a misunderstanding some people had," Howard told us. Whatever the case, by Monday afternoon, City Hall was being flooded with angry calls and queries from reporters seeking a response from the mayor. "It's been a total explosion," said Brown spokesman P.J. Johnston. "The thing is, the mayor agrees with the callers," Johnston said. "We're supposed to do traffic enforcement to ease congestion -- not to increase revenues." The bottom line, however, is that Brown is ticked on two fronts. One: He believes that someone at DPT leaked the memo to embarrass Gerald Norman, the little-known former deputy district attorney whom Brown just installed as Parking and Traffic head. And two: We didn't give Brown a heads-up on the story so he could have h= it the brakes before all hell broke loose. "If someone had called Willie Brown and asked about this, his reaction would have been, 'You have got to be kidding,' " Johnston said. "And you can bet," Johnston added, that "he would have been on the phone right away, chewing up someone to make sure it never happened." Maybe -- but it should be noted that the mayor and the Board of Supervisors recently hiked parking fines substantially in an effort to bring in an extra $20 million next year. Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. They can also be heard on KGO Radio on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Phil Matier can be seen regularly on KRON-TV. Got a tip? Call them at (415) 777-8815 or drop them an e-mail at matierandross@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2003 SF Chronicle