For the week of May 8 - 14, 2002

HPD to take over 
airport security

National Guard is moving out

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By PETER BOLTZ
Express Staff Writer

There will be a changing of the guard on May 10 at Hailey’s Friedman Memorial Airport.

The Idaho National Guard, that is.

Airport manager Rick Baird and Hailey Police Lt. Jeff Gunter said Guardsmen will be replaced by Hailey police officers on Friday.

Gunter said two full-time and two part-time Hailey police officers will be hired by the city in time for the change. The new officers are "strictly for the airport" to provide security for scanners, he said.

Baird said the police officers will be doing what the National Guardsmen had been doing since the beginning of October 2001, "enforcing laws and keeping the checkpoints safe."

Baird said the cost of the new officers will be about $319,000 for 571 days.

He said the money will come from the Transportation Security Agency, which came into being on Nov. 19, when President George W. Bush signed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act.

The TSA will eventually replace the Hailey officers with its own federal officers.

The airport was closed on Sept. 11, following the terrorist attacks on the East Coast, and reopened on Sept. 13 under heightened security.

The airport parking lot was closed except for passenger pick-up and drop-off until Sept. 28, when the National Guard came on duty.

Baird said the airport’s parking lot is now back to normal. A rule banning parking within 300 feet of the airport has been eliminated, as well as vehicle searches of cars entering the parking lot.

Searches of travelers boarding planes will continue as before.

 

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