A small group of site-selection committee members opposed to locating a new airport outside Blaine County has demanded the Friedman Memorial Airport Authority reconsider four closer-in sites already discarded as possible locales.
The seven committee members want airport officials to reopen studies of sites in the Bellevue Triangle, including: Site 2, along the western edge of state Highway 75 at the intersection with U.S. Highway 20; Site 3, just south of the city of Bellevue; and sites 4 and 5, along the northern shoulder of U.S. Highway 20, just east of the intersection with Highway 75.
The revived effort to reconsider the Triangle area is sure to ignite a storm of opposition from a well-organized property owners' group that was responsible for eliminating any consideration of the area several months ago. The city of Bellevue will certainly weigh in with objections, since it has been the most vocal critic of noise from departing and arriving aircraft at the Hailey airport.
The vote to reconsider the sites came during a site-selection committee meeting Tuesday, March 22, which at times was stalled by rancorous charges from Dick Fenton, a real-estate broker who represents both the city of Ketchum and the Sun Valley-Ketchum Chamber & Visitors Bureau. Fenton has made no secret of his belief the present airport should remain where it is.
Among other things, an admittedly "emotional" Fenton charged that:
· Airport officials are "not being honest."
· The site committee is being "rushed."
· A distant new site is being treated as "a field of dreams" that will automatically attract airlines if it is built.
· The citizens' group is "not getting accurate information."
· The selection process "is not leading anywhere."
· Distant sites are unworkable.
The six who joined Fenton in asking for a review of the Triangle sites were Sun Valley Co. General Manager Wally Huffman; Maurice Charlat, representing the Sun Valley-Ketchum Chamber; Dan Olmstead of the Camas County Chamber of Commerce; Barry Niewert, of Power Engineers; Alan Reynolds, of the Sawtooth Board of Realtors, and, curiously, Blaine County Commission Chairman Sarah Michael, who later said she voted as a show of support for north-county interests.
One committee member who did not support the review of old sites was Ken Stevens, of Horizon Airlines.
Committee facilitator Mike Pepper also failed to ask whether the remaining 17 members of the committee present were opposed to referring the discarded sites to the authority for reconsideration.
The authority will take up the request at its April 5 meeting.
At the heart of the appeal for the Triangle sites is the continuing argument from Ketchum-Sun Valley area resort and business interests that sites in the final cut—east of the city of Fairfield and north of the city of Shoshone—are so distant that airlines will be discouraged from serving the area fully and travelers will choose to fly in and out of Boise.
In total, Fenton dominated the meeting for upwards of half an hour, pausing only when interrupted.
Huffman, relatively brief in his comments, accused the authority of engaging in "politics" when it eliminated Triangle sites, referring to protests that overwhelmed airport officials.
"We're making a horrible decision," Huffman said, if Triangle sites aren't considered.
Hailey City Councilwoman Martha Burke, a site committee member who's also chairs the airport authority board, appealed to Fenton for "positive input," and said that if a site isn't picked that passes muster with the public and the Federal Aviation Administration, "we won't have an airport."
Hailey and Blaine County both have vetoed proposals to expand and improve the present airport to meet FAA safety requirements. The FAA, too, implicitly has indicated a new airport must be built elsewhere because of limitations of Friedman in accommodating larger, faster airliners.
When Fenton and Huffman hammered at the distance and travel-time factors of a distant airport, Susan Cutter, the city of Sun Valley's delegate, turned to Huffman, who was sitting beside her, and challenged his reasoning, saying that Snow Basin, also owned by Sun Valley Co. owner Earl Holding, is located an hour from Salt Lake City's airport and still prospers.
Huffman wouldn't concede the point and declined any discussion.
With new instructions from the airport authority not to remain passive when challenged, airport manager Rick Baird fired back at Fenton's allegations that finalist sites being studied aren't economically feasible.
"You haven't provided documentation to back up your claims," Baird said. He also said that it was the site selection committee that voted months ago to focus further studies on sites 8, 9, 10, 12 and 13 and to abandon other sites.
"Then this committee," Huffman said, "is making a big mistake."
For his part, Fenton originally insisted several months ago that Friedman could remain if the authority only wrote a letter asking the FAA to provide a waiver of the safety standards. The FAA has since rejected that notion in writing.
Baird and Burke took on Fenton again.
"It makes me uncomfortable when you (Fenton) speak for the air carriers (by saying) 'they don't want' and 'they say,'" Burke said.
She called Fenton's representations of what air carriers have told him about a new airport and air service "misleading." She then dangled a letter for Fenton to see on the other side of the room—a letter from Horizon Airlines promising continued service to the Wood River region regardless.
To Fenton's insistence that airlines won't operate without revenue guarantees from the authority, Baird shot back that the authority has no power to collect or pay subsidies to airlines. That, he said, is a community responsibility.
Horizon's Stevens said profit-and-loss calculations for operations out of Sun Valley cannot be answered "yes" and "no." Whereas the airline might lose money on passengers flying only to and from Seattle, it would make a profit on Sun Valley passengers continuing on past Seattle to other destinations.
Fenton also claimed that "we're not at risk at (Friedman) airport," a statement that flies in the face of chapter-and-verse citations from the FAA about Friedman safety issues, including runway length, insufficient navigational aids for inclement weather, needed separation of the runway from taxiways and an overrun safety area at the end of the runway.
In what obviously was frustration, Baird, who was sitting behind Fenton in chairs occupied by observers, said that "problems of the airport exist today," and unless "we solve the problems, (air) service for this community will be provided from Twin Falls."
Dick Fenton
