THE BENIFIT TO THE CITY

We have a guest on the blog that seems overly frustrated.  This is probably because he is not capable of understanding the aviation industry and how the FAA works, although they can be confusing at times.  This frustration also seems to be from this guest’s need to ask questions that are irrelevant to the airport, and cannot get the answer he wants.  For instance the comment was made, “So in theory you are placing the importance of this airport over the well-being of an entire community”? (There is no theory involved in this) The new guest is obviously trying to obtain a statement so he can go back to the community and scream “LOOK WHAT THOSE PILOTS SAID”!!!

How does the airport benefit St. Clair?  Just take one person.  I used to spend $100 a week in St. Clair.  Big deal right.  (I don’t anymore; you do not make us feel welcome)  We had a ground school lesson where Fred told us how the money we spend at the airport goes through the town three times.  Not hard to understand.   So, what is the big deal about a hundred bucks?   What if there were fifty of us, like their used to be.   That turns into three quarters of a million dollars in taxable sales for your town, and that’s $39,000 in taxes for the city.   Let’s look at it another way, I have been flying for 30 years, that hundred bucks turns into about $24,000 in taxes that I could have brought to your town.  Not all my flying has been at St. Clair like Mr. Hoffman’s.  Now let’s say that for a fifty year period, the airport would have had fifty tenants, and they spent $50 a week on flying, (that is almost impossible to spend that little) that comes to $6,500,000 million spent in your town.   To quote rocketman      “The correct answer, (let me give it to you since you can't seem to figure it out) is that it in NO WAY benefits the community. Very few people use it, and the people that do use it don't even live in town”.  (He is talking about the airport and the pilots.)  It seems that someone had to do the arithmetic for him.

What if the airport has no significant benefit to St. Clair because none of the pilots live in St. Clair?  Who said it needs to benefit the city?  It benefits the public all around St. Clair.  The FAA does not finance airports soley to provide for the benifit of the citezens of the sponsor.  How does the rest stop on 44 benefit St. Clair? And I am not talking about the water and sewer improvements that the feds paid for.   What do you think would happen if the city failed to fix a water line break that went to the rest stop?

All of the reasons that the city and their supporters are telling everyone to repeat, do not justify the city’s actions.   If the city cannot see the benefit to a community that an airport can provide, does that give the city the right to break the law?  There is no justification for what the city has been caught doing, or for what they will get caught doing.   The actions by the city concerning the maintenance hangar, were lies, what else did the city lie about?

 We have been accused of not caring about the community:  When in fact, the pilots tried very hard to bring Cabelas to St. Clair, for two reasons, we like Cabelas, and it would be great for the city and its airport.  I care no more nor any less for St. Clair than I do about Union, Washington, or any of the other towns that I have landed at or flown over. 

One more point on Cabelas, I  The Cabelas real estate office told us there were three conditions that have to be met for a store placement; a certain size of populations in 35 miles, on and interstate highway away from the city, and close to an airport.   At the Owatonna store, there is a direct phone line to the store from the airport for their shuttle service.  They come to the airport and pick up pilots and return them to the airport.