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In the battle over Albert Whitted Airport, some members of City Council are taking an us-versus-them stance. Who is the enemy? The people they were elected to represent.
St. Petersburg City Council members have finally identified the enemy in their rush to rig the debate over Albert Whitted Airport.
"They are going to put a referendum out there," council member Earnest Williams warned with visible alarm. The "they" he was referring to are city residents who are collecting thousands of signatures to offer voters a choice of a waterfront park where the airport now sits. Williams forgets that "they" are also the people he swore to serve.
Or listen to council member James Bennett, who represents only the airport users' interests. "We are trying to put something out there to give our side," Bennett said.
So in the minds of Williams and Bennett (and most of their fellow council members), it's The Council against The People in an upcoming referendum to decide the future of Albert Whitted Airport.
Only council member Jay Lasita understood how far outside the boundaries of public responsibility the council had strayed. "We shouldn't have a side in this," Lasita said. "I resent the statement of "us versus them.' "
But that's the way it ended up, on a 7-1 vote (with only Lasita dissenting). The City Council is so afraid residents will have a clear choice that it proposed a misleading referendum question of its own that would counter the park initiative and write Albert Whitted Airport into the City Charter. If the council's amendment were to pass, it would mean future councils would have no choice but to operate the airport at taxpayer expense, even if an airport in the heart of downtown became too costly or too dangerous.
Actually, the City Council long ago sold out the public's interest in the 110 acres now covered with concrete runways and metal sheds. When the city took grants from the Federal Aviation Administration, it signed away much of its control over the property. The FAA now tells the city what it can and cannot do with its land.
According to the FAA, if St. Petersburg residents vote for a park, "the FAA would consider that action to be intentional noncompliance with Federal requirements." Which means? The FAA might try to withhold current grant payments, seek repayment of past grants or go to court "to maintain the facility as a public use airport for 20 years."
It is shameful abuse of power that the FAA would try to insert itself into a local referendum vote. St. Petersburg residents shouldn't let themselves be intimidated by their own City Council, much less by a federal agency that is little more than a front for the aviation industry.
At least now residents know what they have to overcome to exert their right of ownership of the public waterfront: the men and women who were elected to serve the public.