Friday, October 7, 2005

Airport Authority sets special meeting to finalize site decision

Not a 'public hearing,' board says


By PAT MURPHY
Express Staff Writer

After thrashing and disposing of one proposal after another, the Friedman Memorial Airport Authority agreed Tuesday night to hold a special meeting to vote on which site or sites to recommend as its choice for a new airport to replace the Hailey air field.

The meeting is tentatively scheduled for 5:30 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 26, in the conference room of the Old Blaine County Courthouse in Hailey.

After discussing whether the meeting should include public comment, the board agreed it should be a special authority meeting only, not a public hearing.

But it took some doing—almost an hour of proposing and dispensing with ideas—to decide to hold the special meeting.

Board member Len Harlig began by suggesting a special meeting, since discussing a new site would be difficult, he said, to "shoehorn into a regular meeting." But he touched a nerve when he also suggested reviewing all the proposed sites studied by the site selection committee and deciding whether other sites might be desirable.

Blaine County Commissioner Tom Bowman, who is also an Airport Authority member, added a suggestion—create a "small committee" to consider sites before the authority made a decision.

Dr. Ron Fairfax, an at-large member of the board, argued the authority "has enough information" to make a recommendation to the Federal Aviation Administration for an economic impact study, which is one of several stops on the way to approving or rejecting sites.

But a rebuke in kid gloves came from Hailey Mayor Susan McBryant, who's also an authority member. She said it is "a little bit disingenuous to see another small committee do a job I was hired to do."

Authority Chairwoman Martha Burke, a Hailey City Council member, said sharply, "No more committees. No more. I'd be prepared to discuss it (a site decision) tonight and move on. No more of that going around to the same place."

Bowman tried once again, suggesting "it might be advisable to run the (site) selection" by the Blaine County Commission first before passing it along to the FAA.

Finally, Harlig conceded that "we're past looking at the four possible options at Friedman" for complying with the FAA mandate to comply with safety standards or build a new facility.

Burke agreed, saying all the options for expanding Friedman "are hideous."

Airport consultant Chuck Sundby chimed in that capital costs of expanding Friedman in any way "could end the discussion."

However, a member of the audience, Mike Rasch, chief financial officer for SevenBar, parent company of Sun Valley Aviation, told the authority he was concerned there had been no study of the economic impact of moving Friedman elsewhere—that is, loss of jobs and other impacts on the community's economy.

But Sundby said from an official standpoint, the FAA's principal concern for sites is costs of building and operating an airport.




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