Is it too late to make a course
correction and avoid a potential crash landing of millions of dollars
of taxpayers' cash when our municipal airport closes? Council's work to relocate the Waterville airport
is headed for a solution that places only municipal dollars in the
kitty, and only municipal dollars at risk. We need to immediately
challenge our provincial and federal infrastructure partners about
that, perhaps making the investment of our dollars conditional on
their financial involvement.
Time is short. I was reminded of that
last week when a "sore-of-heart" Kings County resident
forwarded CAO Tom MacEwan's January 8, 2016 letter to Transport
Canada. It read: “This will confirm that operations at the
Waterville Municipal Airport shall cease on March 31, 2016 and
following the closure date, the airport will no longer be available
for air operations of any kind.”
The impact of decisions evolve.
Realities change. Time marches forward. Since the decision to sell
airport lands to Michelin and relocate the airport I've continued to
look for a win-win-win situation for taxpayers, aviators, and
Michelin, despite frustrating and sometimes surprising circumstances.
We began with a primary focus on new
jobs and secondary focus of relocating the airport. An expansion will
raise Michelin's commercial property evaluation and additional tax
revenues beyond the one million dollars currently collected each year
from the tire giant will be welcome. Council has been encouraged by
Deputy Warden Hirtle to not think in terms of “if” the expansion
happens, but “when”, and to think of that when as “soon”.
Why then, aren't
we actively pursuing a financial role for provincial and federal
governments. There will be greater growth in their income tax
revenues than the county's property tax revenues once hundreds of new
Michelin jobs are realized.
The remaining condition for the
county's involvement in establishing the conditions for civil
aviation activities at 14-Wing is a solid business case to justify
the expenditure of millions of taxpayers' dollars. The job of
exploring the business case was contracted to the MMM Group who
estimate “a
small but tangible impact on the economy of the Annapolis Valley”
for a general aviation airport. Somewhere between year three and ten
they report employment equivalent to ten full time jobs. With
this fairly weak business case, the MMM Group first related the
spending of 1.5 million dollars in terms of compensation to hangar
owners. It's now referenced as a “relocation allowance”.
The business case as tabled, does not
make a case for a sound investment of taxpayers dollars in the
regional economy. But the Freedom Aviation Society, and its
hard-working chairman Paul Easson, of Easson's Transport, pressed on.
Continued hard work to attract businesses to the future 14-Wing
location is bearing fruit. Perhaps because the case has been made
that the facilities there, spectacular runways and 24-hour air
traffic control, can't be rivalled by an independent civilian airport
in a small county like ours.
Easson reports that a charter flight
company, a flight school and an airfreight operation are likely. We
are told that DND will be able to make room for these interests
despite the current small footprint set currently aside for general
aviation. It is also notable and laudable that Freedom Aviation seems
to have secured confidence in the Greenwood location among nearly all
those who currently use the municipal airport at Waterville
For me, two major concerns remain.
One. The county
plans to spend every penny realized from the Michelin sale (almost $2
Million) to locate a general aviation airport at 14-Wing Greenwood.
If heightened security concerns should arise, our investment would
quickly come undone.
Two. Our
provincial government initiated this sale to Michelin and the
Department of National Defence is likely to be left with significant
new infrastructure, including a large hangar, if, for security
reasons, DND must boot all
civilians
off its base.
Why is only
municipal taxpayer's money being used and placed at such risk? Given
the great potential for tax revenues that the Michelin expansion will
bring, at the very least the provincial and federal governments
should be asked to guarantee this use of county taxpayers' funds.
Both the federal and provincial
governments could be asked to place a third of these funds in trust
with payment made to the county if our investment does become undone
by heightened security concerns.
The bitter medicine of the closure of
the much loved municipal airport at Waterville on March 31, 2016,
will be sweetened if we hear in the weeks ahead that sod-turning on
the Michelin expansion is as imminent as Deputy Warden Hirtle
expects.
It appears closure can't be further
delayed because the county must collect the money from the land sale
to Michelin as soon as possible. The
airport community has been virtually silent if dissatisfied with this
date. Without Michelin's
cash for the purchase, the
infrastructure needed at Greenwood can't be built. That
translates to a lack of a home-base for the 48
aviators the Freedom Aviation Society has
lined up for its move to Greenwood. March 31, 2016 at time of writing
is 70-days away.
