AUTOPILOT

Looking back at the management decisions of the city in regards to the airport you have to wonder, what were these clowns thinking?

The results of the actions of the city demonstrate one very clear point; they cannot do the wrong things in the right way.  What are the wrong things?  The steady and steep rise in hangar rates that have led the airport into financial ruin is the most obvious.   When AirEvac was going to experience the same rate increase as the fixed wings, they left.  There are five tenants remaining, and the city is refusing to rent hangars.  The airport could easily be experiencing an income of over $20,000 a year, but it is more like $10,000 due to the management decisions of the city.  This is not difficult to understand, it is on the level of grades school math.  So this leads to the obvious conclusion that this must be intentional.  

One thing is very clear, the airport would be better off, and so would the city, if no one was managing the airport.  It would be costing the city less money to just let it go on by itself.  

The city has needlessly created a financial burden on the taxpayers; will this just be considered part of the cost of closing it?  The city claims that it is responsible to the taxpayers of St. Clair and there for are justified in its management practices.  The results of the city actions, demonstrates the lack of aviation knowledge, lack of understanding of the law, and the lack knowledge of just plain common sense and good business practices.  This may not be so much a lack of knowledge, but just an intentional disregard for them, to justify an end result. 

The St. Clair Airport has received national attention due to these management practices.  This blog is being read by eight FAA offices from Maine to California, the Department of Transportation in DC, and the DOJ in DC.   

The fact that the city would deliberately break the law to close the airport is not surprising, but what is surprising, and should be disturbing to the taxpayers of St. Clair, is that they probably thought that no one would notice.