What would it take to make the airport designated a historic landmark?


"Jay Honeck" wrote in
news:Pmuzc.55284$Sw.10947@attbi_s51:

Depression and despair rule the roost tonight in Iowa City.

After all the meetings attended, and all the editorials rebutted, and
all the interviews granted, and all the letters written -- our City
Council called a sudden, surprise joint meeting with our Airport
Commission tonight, and announced their intention of putting the
dissolution of our independent Airport Commission to a voter's
referendum on the November ballot.

This signals the end of our airport, plain and simple. The independent
airport commission was set up after World War II SPECIFICALLY to
protect the airport from the political whims and vagaries of subsequent
city governments, and now the council has indicated that they intend to
dissolve the only body that protects our airport from the land
developers and noise nazis.

I knew when I found the meeting agenda on the city website this
afternoon (posted just hours before the meeting) -- and it listed NO
topic for discussion -- that we were in deep ****. Boy, were we ever.

Upon hearing about this (almost by accident, from a connection deep
within the bureaucracy) I immediately sent a bulletin email out to the
"Friends of Iowa City Airport" mailing list -- but it was too late. We
only managed to get about ten members to attend, and there was no
opportunity for public comment. We just had to sit there and take it,
while they spewed their political lies and slanted bull crap about how
this change would "help the airport in the long run"...

I'm tired, man. We fight, and fight, and fight, and we defeat them at
every logical level, both publicly and privately -- and then they pull
together a sneak attack like this. Hell, even the airport manager -- a
city employee! -- didn't know about this meeting until last Friday, and
he didn't know what it was going to be about until he walked in the
door and was broadsided.

I know what you'll say: Call AOPA. Hell, they're no help -- our local
"representative" is a commercial pilot -- who, in 7 years, I've never
even MET -- who only wants that title on his resume. I'm at the
airport every god danged day of my life, and I couldn't pick this guy
out of a line-up... Helluva job he's doing.

We are soooo screwed.