The first hint of an organized legal attack on plans for a replacement airfield to Friedman Memorial Airport surfaced Wednesday almost as a footnote to an otherwise uneventful meeting discussing how a proposed new airfield should be governed.
Claiming that north Blaine County interests have not been adequately heard in developing plans for a new airport, Sun Valley Mayor Wayne Willich told the six-person Blue Ribbon Commission, of which he is a member, that "all kind of stuff is forming up" and that he foresees "a lot of trouble" ahead for the proposed new airport.
However, another member of the group, Ketchum City Councilman Charles Conn, was even darker and more explicit.
He said people whom he characterized as "the most powerful and influential" in the Ketchum-Sun Valley area feel so much "anger and resentment" that "legal funds are being created."
When asked by the Idaho Mountain Express for names, Conn declined to offer any, and also did not explain how "legal funds" would be used or on what grounds a legal attack would be launched.
Furthermore, Conn added, a group he identified as "the environmental community" would also challenge any site picked for a new airport.
Conn, a millionaire businessman, pilot and environmental activist, also presented the panel with his own "white paper" challenging the economic rationale for a new airport, a theme that was carried out for several years by one of the principal objectors to closing Friedman, valley real estate executive Dick Fenton. He along with Sun Valley Co. General Manager Wally Huffman and businessman Maurice Charlat had been the most visible opponents of a new airport.
For some two hours, the panel had been discussing the type of policymaking group that should run a new airport. Conn proposed a seven-person board. The panel's chairman, Blaine County Commissioner Tom Bowman, persuaded Conn and the others to agree to recommending a five-person board, composed of a county commissioner, a general aviation representative and three members picked from a slate of nominees from each of the three county commission districts.
It was after this prolonged discussion that Conn and Willich revived long-standing complaints that north county interests had not been adequately heard before a decision was made to build a new airfield.
"There's a lot of mistrust and fear from players in the towns we live in up there," meaning the Ketchum-Sun Valley area, Conn said. "Issues have not been put to bed yet."
Conn did not specify which "issues" of concern have caused "anger and resentment."
Both Huffman and Fenton were members of a 25-person site-selection committee that deliberated on possible sites for a new airport for months, and were voluble in their objections during more than a dozen public meetings. Other critics as well as supporters of a new field were heard during a string of public meetings in the community.
As for the economics of a new airport, Friedman manager Rick Baird pointed out that yet to be started and completed is the third phase of an environmental impact study funded by the Federal Aviation Administration that will be devoted to the economics of building and operating a new field.
In arguing for more input, Conn and Willich said they wanted to become advocates rather than obstructionists.
Because FAA officials have said publicly that Friedman is unsafe for larger, faster airline and corporate aircraft, and both the city of Hailey and Blaine County have supported a move, reversing the decision to replace Friedman would seem to be difficult.
One possible new player in the opposition is a new group, the Friedman Airport Users Alliance, which is distributing a 34-page document seeking members and asserting that Friedman can be retained. The document contains no names of officers, but lists Hailey P.O. Box 3830 and a telephone number as contact points.
The group proposes to use funds ($1,000 for corporate, $250 for senior membership and $100 for associate) to hire a former Alaska airport executive, Paul Bowers, to show how Friedman can continue to be operational just as the Juneau, Alaska, airport was retained despite similar weather and terrain impediments as Friedman.
In its mission statement, the alliance calls closing Friedman "adverse" to a wide spectrum of valley business, recreational and taxpayer interests.
