Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Opinion & Editorial

by Phil Taylor, Victor

I was deeply involved with ICAARE and in the airport petition process several years back. I assisted in the preparation of the petition which allowed us to gather signatures for a ballot initiative, the process which is the citizens’ right and appropriate procedure whereby citizens can propose a law by petition and ensure its submission to the electorate. We fulfilled the statutory requirements gathering far more signatures than required.

After the petitions were in hand and submitted to the County Clerk and Recorder, Dennis Moore, Gwen Haas and myself met with county commissioners individually and presented the case that an election would be expensive and a burden to the county. We suggested that a permanent resolution could be prepared and adopted in concert with the petition and requiring the issue be put to a vote of the people IF any modification, expansion or change is ever attempted. The commissioners were Betty Lund, Jack Atthowe and Alan Thompson.

There were several airport public meetings which were less than cordial and one involved a cowardly assault on Dennis Moore. In my opinion, there was some leaning at that time by several of the commissioners to thwart the petition initiative, but the signed petitions secured an either/or situation for the citizens of this county. The resolution we suggested was prepared and passed. The citizens were given a guarantee that they would be allowed to vote on any expansion activity prior to its undertaking.

Now, some are saying rescind that resolution! But that cannot happen unless the issue presented in the petition gathering process is submitted to the voters. I remember vividly posing this very question when negotiating about the resolution. I personally wanted to let the people vote on the issue but acquiesced in favor of the lower cost alternative of adopting a resolution to protect the public's interest.

My point is, when I am involved in these kinds of efforts I try to be precise and comprehensive in my actions. Knowing full well there will always be someone, some business or some political individual, that will attempt to read into and interpret the meaning of the issue differently than the authors.

With all that I have read over the past several months, about the airport specifically, it amazes me how much effort is put forth to squelch efforts by a majority of citizens.

I feel strongly that this airport does not need any expansion. That's a personal belief of mine. However, I will support the action of the citizens of this county if they vote to allow or deny expansion. However, until that time comes, I remind you that the initiative process providing for involvement of citizens is still alive and cannot simply be shrugged off.

Re: Hamilton Ravalli County Airfield

Dear Editor,

Our small airfield at Hamilton in Ravalli County is a public facility just like any other. It serves a purpose just like any other public facility. The fire station serves to put out fires, the hospital serves to make people well, etc. This perfectly good facility has existed since the 1930’s, however it does need some long overdue safety improvements which the FAA along with other organizations will provide at no cost to the local taxpayer.

The airfield facility provides services such as search and rescue, fire fighting, smoke jumping, air ambulance services, business transport, flight training, and provides work for many people at the airfield itself. It brings in trade to the community and again, at zero cost to the local taxpayer.

Now we cannot have our cake and eat it, so the saying goes. We cannot appease a few folk who oppose implementing the best safety recommendations with less safe options and still get FAA funding. The FAA would like to see the safest airfield possible, as would the folks who work at the airfield and the folks who use it to fight fires and conduct businesses. We seem to have complicated the whole issue with alternatives and options rather than concentrating on safety. It would appear we now have four alternatives which are under review. These options start out at number one and increase to number four. Each option starting at number two results in a progressively safer situation (option one is to do nothing at all). Since the airfield is so small to begin with there is very little difference between the existing airfield and option four which is the safest of all the options. The proposed safety improvement number four is just about safety, period. There is no expansion to a larger airport, as some people fear. The safety improvements proposed would be in terms of feet, not miles. Some people have driveways longer than our landing strip.

Airfields are like magnets. They attract residential housing, apartments, commercial building and a whole host of other constructions. Some around the nation have shops and commercial enterprises right up to the perimeter fence. Most of these airfields started off in completely isolated areas but over time people build too close. Most people do not complain, as they are aware from the beginning of the inconvenience an airfield may bring. Fortunately our small airfield is quite isolated and we should make sure it stays that way. Here in Hamilton there are very few people who complain and the few who do moved here after the airfield was established in the thirties.

If we go for any option but the safest option and heaven forbid an accident were to occur as a result of not taking the safest option it would not take a ‘hot shot’ lawyer long to bring a case whereby he would say, “Why did you not go for the safest option”? If option two is safer than option one, take it. If option three is safer than two, take it. And if option four is the very safest, definitely take that one.

The airfield safety improvement should in no way be misconstrued as an expansion. The additional acreage that would make our airfield safer is small in relative terms.

Always go for the best and safest option, as we never know what the future may hold.

The primary function of the FAA is air and community safety. There is no clandestine plan by the FAA to make our small airfield anything other than safe – safe for the aircraft that use it, and safe for the community around it. This being the case, we should go all out to help them.

There will always be people who oppose and object to just about anything. If the question of the airfield is resolved with the safest option, what will be the result?

What will happen?

What will happen if the safest option goes ahead and a few years down the line we have all the safety features and funding required by the FAA and we have a nicely laid out airfield with smooth taxiways and a nice safe runway with flowers and beautiful shrubs’ growing as they do in other communities.

What will happen?

Most of the same people who object to the safety improvement at our airfield will undoubtedly forget the whole issue and will be out on a different tangent with a different agenda and the county commissioners will have their time taken up, as busy as they are with other important matters, trying to sort out yet another unnecessary, imagined ghost. How do I know this? Easy! If you look at the safest proposal, the airfield will look and be very much the same as what we have today. There will be no screaming airliners and jumbo jets coming and going, no aircraft falling out of the sky striking Canada geese. So with the airfield being a fait accompli, the commissioners, as busy as they are, will again be inundated with the same visitors and letters from most of the same people on some new topic. They will never, ever, stop. There will always be an agenda for these folk whether its wolves, foxes, bears, highway 93, fish, camels, or the chance that elephants will come up over Lost Trail pass. There will always be an agenda of opposition.

How to stop them?

If we can persuade the naysayers to re-direct their energy to accomplishing good

work, the community will be the beneficiary. There are good positive services in our community that need the type of energy these folk have -- the Salvation Army, hospitals, Hospice, and Food Bank, to name a few. These are great organizations that need people who have time on their hands and suffer emptiness in their lives. Instead of being obstructionists they could find a much happier life with positive fulfillment.

So to sum up the whole argument, I would urge the county to go for it. Go for the safest option there is available. Why? Because you never know what the future may hold.

It should be mentioned that the folks who are opposed to the safety improvements seem to have been well organized and persuasive in their arguments. The good folk who work at the airfield are disorganized and disjointed but there is probably good reason for that. The people who are opposed to the safety improvements seem to make this their full time occupation whereas the people working at the airfield work hard all day and go home too tired to get the same cohesion. I do hope the commissioners are not seduced by those opposed to our airfield safety. As a relative newcomer to Montana I see this as plain as day and hope the commissioners can see this. Also please remember that if we go for the maximum safety option it would be hard for any future litigator to have success in trying to sue the county. With the currently identified safety issues at our airport, any accidental loss of life would result in a field day for eager lawyers if we do not opt for the best recommendations offered by the FAA.

Since I am addressing the question of litigation: If the folks who oppose the safety of our airfield go to litigation as a result of a decision made by the county it will be because they did not get their own way.

If the folks who depend on the airfield go to litigation it will be for loss of business, livelihood and safety.

Ray Smith
Hamilton

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