A COMMUNITY WORKING TOGETHER

Of course this plaque was meant for the Old Airevac hangar.  But this image very well describes the actions of the city council.  The city has with great effort tried to explain their airport management practices with the statements that Airevac provided a great community service, and deserved special treatment.   

When Airevac showed up in St. Clair, the city was exceptionally proud that St. Clair was chosen to be one of the Airevac bases.  Airevac did not come to St. Clair because St. Clair was such a great place to operate their business; Airevac came to St. Clair because it had an airport.  There were many that looked at this and watched the money being spent, and just murmured, “I don’t know about all of this.”  As it turned out they were right.

Now that Airevac has left, and the city is left holding the empty bag of cash that they spent to put them on the airport, what now?   What has it really come down to?  For the tens of thousands of dollars the city invested into the airport project, the city, or the airport, is left with two building that won’t house an aircraft without extensive and expensive modifications.   

Now this picture starts to make sense.  The city at this point,  and this is not intended as my usual off the cuff criticism, but is intended to be taken as sound advice, needs to reconsider its present course of action and where it intends to go with this, in light of what it has already done and what little it has accomplished. 

What have they accomplished?

They have brought national attention to what they are doing, and is not generally seen in a good way.

They have brought the full attention of the FAA into play at an airport that the feds barley new existed until this action was started. 

They have embarrassed the city on a national level.

They have by trying to prove their actions are justified, actually proved they are in violation of almost all of the grant assurances that pertain to airport operations. 

They have physically destroyed a publically funded facility. 

They have tried to execute, with no knowledge of the Federal Aviation Laws, a plan that they see as a new bold initiative that will lead to what they call an improvement in the aviation system.  (Just think about this for a minute, with no aviation knowledge, no aviation experience, no expertise in the aviation field what so ever, after all of the “big name” aviation consultants told them they can’t do it, the city goes to DC with a plan that says the Federal Government and the FAA don’t know what they are doing and they know all about this stuff and can help them fix it. 

They have wasted many, many thousands of St. Clair taxpayer dollars. 

They have promised millions in tax dollars to the local community, which they cannot produce. 

The city needs help, and not just someone to explain aviation to them.  They need to get a handle on everything, planning and zoning, environmental, economical, community development industrial development. 

The biggest problem is that the city does not know what they don’t know.   Until they come to realize this, they will for sure run into more difficulty in the future.   When you cannot see what’s ahead of you, you cannot tell what you will run into.   The ones that hurt the most, are the ones you do not see coming.