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Uncertainty clouds airport’s future
By Lynn Hotaling
Bills pending in the state Legislature are casting a long shadow over the Jackson County Airport and may bring planned construction at the 26-year-old facility to a halt.
House Bill 1051, which has cleared the House and is scheduled to be heard by the Senate’s finance committee in the near future, allows the creation of a regional airport authority to serve both Jackson and Macon counties. That bill also includes language that would allow Jackson County’s commissioners to dissolve the county’s existing Airport Authority after a public hearing or referendum.
Introduced by Rep. Phil Haire (D-Sylva), HB 1051 has gone through a number of revisions and delays. At one stage it included language that protected the current Airport Authority, but it was amended again before it was sent to the Senate.
The bill with the more immediate impact is HB 1776, which was amended by Sen. John Snow (D-Murphy), who has already initiated a freeze on the payment of allocated Department of Transportation funds to the Jackson County Airport Authority. If the bill becomes law, it could kill plans for a long-anticipated $1.3 million hangar/terminal construction project at the airfield located atop Berry Ridge in Cullowhee, because it will prevent the Authority from entering into contracts for the hangar project before Sept. 1. Airport officials said during their June 30 meeting that bids received are only valid through mid-July.
HB 1776 “crossed over” to the Senate in its initial incarnation, which was a bill that would have provided for certain specialty license plates. Snow stripped that language and added his own: “A bill to be entitled an act to put a moratorium on the Jackson County Airport Authority entering into contracts relating to the hangar construction project.”
Snow said Tuesday that while he had heard from both Jackson and Macon commissioners with regard to their support for the regional airport authority bill, he decided on his own to do what he could to deter Jackson County’s Airport Authority from moving forward with the $1.3 million project.
“I read in The Sylva Herald where (Airport Authority Chairman) Tom McClure was ready to let contracts for that project,” Snow said. “They were getting ready to spend more than $1 million on an airport that’s falling down the mountain – it’s like throwing money down a snake hole.”
Snow referenced a feasibility study done in 1997 that indicates it would cost at least $3.2 million to restore the airport’s 2,900-foot runway to its original length. The runway, which initially was 3,400 feet long, was shortened by 500 feet shortly after the airport was built, according to the 1997 report.
In an e-mail to McClure, Snow did not mince words in stating his position that no more money should be spent on the airport until its future is decided and disagreed with McClure’s contention that the local airport is a valuable economic development tool.
“I am warning you that it would be a serious mistake to go ahead with these contracts for these new hangars that were spoken to in The Sylva Herald,” Snow wrote last Wednesday.
The e-mail correspondence between Snow and McClure was released by Commissioner Eddie Madden, the commissioners’ representative on the Airport Authority, in conjunction with his resignation from that post.
Madden read his letter of resignation to his fellow commissioners last Thursday (see page 7A) but otherwise did not comment, and there was no airport discussion during the meeting.
When reached Tuesday, Madden said he had nothing else to say about the matter except that he had notified the other commissioners that “to avoid a perceived conflict of interest,” Madden has relocated his airplane out-of-state. Madden’s plane was formerly housed at the Macon County Airport.
Madden’s letter makes similar points to those in Snow’s e-mail and indicates that, in his view, the Jackson County Airport is not a viable economic development tool and that planned improvements would benefit only a handful of area private plane owners.
Airport Authority officers McClure and Secretary-Treasurer Jim Rowell say they are surprised by Snow’s actions.
“We’re shocked at Snow’s support of the bill,” McClure said. “The bill attempts to circumvent the DOT’s policies for airport projects.”
According to McClure, DOT officials have “signed off” on every step of the proposed hangar project.
“We set out to work with DOT about three years ago to bring the airport up to state standards for airports of this type,” he said.
In addition, McClure said he questions the constitutionality of Snow’s bill.
“We haven’t sought a legal opinion yet, but I think we will,” McClure said.
McClure’s e-mail to Snow asks the senator to amend the bill or stop it.
“This is not a good bill for the taxpayers of Jackson County and was not asked for in good faith,” McClure wrote.
Both McClure and Rowell disagreed with Madden’s and Snow’s view that the airport does not aid economic development.
“We currently have 12 to 15 flights per week in and out of the airport that are business-related,” McClure said.
According to Rowell, Harrah’s executives frequently flew in and out of the airport during casino negotiations with the Eastern Band of Cherokee and Wal-Mart planners did as well.
The two also objected to Snow’s and Madden’s reliance on the 1997 feasibility study done by airport consultants Talbert & Bright. They point instead to a 2004 10-year-plan, also by Talbert & Bright, that was completed with input from DOT’s Department of Aviation and outlines steps necessary to bring the Jackson County Airport up to standards.
That study lists the current runway length as 3,003 feet, more than 100 feet longer than indicated in the previous report.
The Airport Authority also conducted a visioning process attended by some 40 people, McClure said.
As a result of consultation with various groups, the Authority determined that they should construct as many hangars as would fit to make the airport more economically viable. Since the Authority was already obligated to build a terminal (a condition of the state repaving the runway), officials decided to combine a small terminal with a larger hangar complex, McClure said.
“We went hand-in-hand with the DOT,” McClure said. “To find a state senator introducing legislation to bring this to a stop is stunning and shocking.”
McClure also pointed out that the Airport Authority is an independent body, created by the Legislature.
“The Airport Authority is like a municipality, for all practical purposes,” he said.
In the long run, though, what matters is that officials have to work together, McClure and Rowell said.
McClure said he had talked with Commissioners’ Chairman Brian McMahan about a meeting that might be followed by a joint meeting of commissioners and Airport Authority members.
“I expressed our desire to work with them,” McClure said.
McMahan confirmed that he and McClure had talked and said he hoped to arrange a meeting with McClure that could be a precursor to a joint session of the two boards.
McMahan said he concurs with Snow’s move to freeze DOT allocations to the local airport and has written a letter to Bill Williams, aviation director for N.C. DOT, endorsing the initiative. According to McMahan, Williams asked Jackson County for a statement of its position in the matter, and McMahan polled the other four commissioners by telephone before asking county Manager Ken Westmoreland to draft the letter.
“Sen. Snow took it upon himself to freeze the funding, but the more I thought about it, it didn’t seem like a bad idea,” McMahan said.
With regard to the future of the local airport, McMahan said he’d like to see it continue.
“I feel the airport is a vital component of the county’s infrastructure, and I’m willing to sit down with the Airport Authority,” McMahan said. “I think the airport can be a very useful tool – it’s better for our county to have one than not. But, our airport will never be what Macon County’s is.”
Commissioner Conrad Burrell, who is also a member of the state DOT board, said he doesn’t feel Snow is trying to tell the DOT what to do. Instead, said Burrell, the former judge is trying to slow the airport project until the question of a regional airport authority is decided, a position Burrell supports.
“One of the turning points was the feasibility study,” Burrell said. “The problem we’ve got up there is only small planes can land.” Bringing the runway to a length of 5,000 feet would be prohibitively expensive, Burrell said.
County commissioners May 2 endorsed the concept of a regional airport authority and said the Jackson County Airport is inadequate in that it can only serve the needs of single-engine planes, which limits its economic benefits.
Joining forces with Macon County would benefit Jackson in that the Macon airport has room to expand to the 5,000-foot runway necessary to land larger aircraft.
Controversy surrounding the bills is the latest skirmish in the “air wars” that have plagued Jackson County since commissioners – with no public discussion – removed McClure from his authority seat in January. Commissioners subsequently named Ed Riley to fill McClure’s seat, and during elections in February, Gary Buchanan and Riley were elected chairman and secretary-treasurer, respectively. McClure, Rowell and Eldridge Painter filed suit March 21, seeking an injunction that would restore the Authority as it was prior to commissioners’ action to remove McClure.
Judge Ronald Payne’s granted the injunction April 15. His ruling restored McClure and Rowell to their former positions and ended Riley’s tenure, though the lawsuit is still pending. Chip Hall resigned from the Authority in June as did Buchanan. With Madden’s resignation last week, the Authority is down to three members – McClure, Rowell and Painter.
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