I flew to Marshal Missouri yesterday afternoon.  In planning this trip, I phoned the city of Marshall on Monday to inquire as to the runway conditions.   They explained that the airport was closed due to two inches of ice on the runway, but they would be trying to remove it on Wednesday and Thursday.   I told them I would check back with them about the runway.  On Thursday morning I received a phone call from the city of Marshall and was told that the airport would be open and the runway cleared by Thursday afternoon.  That describes how you operate an airport for the benefit of the public.   I have been to a lot of airports in the last year and will visit many more in the next couple of months. I have found this type of attitude about airport operations to be the norm.   When you compare how the city of St. Clair operates its facility as a comparison to others around the state one has to wonder what is driving this type of attitude.   If St. Clair is following everything they are told to do by the Feds, is everyone else doing it wrong?  If that is the case, why is the FAA not telling these other airports that they should be using St. Clair as an example on how to run their airport. 

The people in the St. Clair community bought this ground and gave it to the city for an airport.  Now some one destroys that gift and says it’s no good anymore we have to get rid of it.  Then they go on the Feds and try to explain that it is not their fault, and that this should be the new form of airport management, and that the laws are outdated, should be changed to allow this to happen to other airports around the country.   It is delusional to think that the Feds would take this seriously. 

This reminds me of a monkey with a rock in one hand and a stick in the other.  He drops the rock and hits his toe, and now his toe hurts.  So he starts beating the rock with the stick.  He does not know why he is beating the rock, or why his toe hurts, and does not know what is going to happen if he keeps beating the rock.  All he knows is that he wants to beat the rock with a stick.  Soon the monkey's arm starts to hurt from beating the rock.  Now he has a sore toe and a sore arm, and he doesn't know why, but he just keeps beating on that rock.