The Environmental
Assessment draft is out for review. In the
beginning of this document is a statement explaining why the city needs to
close the airport. “Therefore, the city
of St. Clair’s primary goal is to close the airport due to financial
constraints.” What happened to the “Chesterfield
like shopping center?” The document also
goes on to say that, “the commercial development of the Proposed Action does
not have an anticipated date.”
What the city is saying here, we need to close the
airport because it is costing us money.
The next question should be, Why is it costing the city money to operate
the airport? But of course the city will
not say this, but the reason is because the city wants it to cost the city
money to operate the airport. Without
this point closure does not make any sense.
The tenants
and the airport have been blamed for this, as if the airport was a living
breathing entity that could operate by itself.
But in reality the city is responsible for this. The city has with intent and purpose managed this
airport into financial ruin to pursue a closure.
When you
look at the numbers, the money spent on this, which is over 1 million dollars,
yes that is 1,000,000 as compared to the cost of keeping it open at $10,000 per
year, and share this over the cost to the taxpayers, it would take over 100
years for this to pay off. Even if you
double the cost to the city to operate the airport to $20,000 it would still
take over 50 years to payoff.
