So-called "north county" business interests have appealed to the Friedman Memorial Airport Authority to revive the citizens group studying a possible new airport site so it could continue its work.
The airport board retired the committee after the group voted on its preference for three possible sites to replace the Hailey field.
In a June 29 letter to the authority, Jim Latta, president of the Sun Valley-Ketchum Chamber & Visitors Bureau, wrote, "the long-term interests of the community at large and the Friedman Memorial Airport is best served through adequate stakeholder input and involvement throughout the site selection process."
But Airport Authority Chairwoman Martha Burke said Tuesday that while she understands "the urgency the community feels" about the airport studies, "right now we don't have the information" for the site committee to study or discuss.
However, she said Latta's letter would be discussed by the full board at its monthly meting Thursday, July 7, scheduled for 4:30 p.m. in the Hailey City Hall meeting room.
When the site committee was retired by authority vote in June, several authority members noted that attendance by site group members had fallen off and the site preference vote seemed to cap the group's work.
The site committee, whose 25 principal members and 25 alternates represent various civic, business and government sectors, began work in the summer of 2004. It studied the pluses and minuses of 16 original candidate sites before narrowing down final choices to three—one in Lincoln County north of Shoshone, another in Camas County east of Fairfield, and another in the far south of Blaine County, east of state Highway 75 on Bureau of Land Management land.
But Sun Valley and Ketchum interests, especially the Sun Valley Co., have been adamant in seeking information on the economic impact of a new airport that they assert may be relocated too far from Friedman Memorial in Hailey. A distant site would be "devastating" to the resort industry, Sun Valley Co. General Manager Wally Huffman has said in public meetings.
However, Burke said such information is now being developed and isn't yet available.
The authority has invited site committee members with a continuing interest to attend authority meetings to express opinions.
