This time, everyone had a seat and no one stood on a chair.
But the more than 300 people who filled the ballroom at the Radisson Hotel and Conference Center on Wednesday night made sure Pinellas County officials heard their opposition to expansion plans for St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport.
"You try and put a happy face on it, but we aren't buying it anymore," said Dave Chilcote of Clearwater.
He was one of nearly three dozen people who came to the microphone to protest during the first of two special public information sessions intended to quell growing rancor over the airport expansion.
Pinellas officials want to invest $223-million in the airport during the next 20 years. But neighboring communities fear there will be more noise and a lower quality of life.
The conflicting agendas reached a peak last month when county commissioners postponed a major rezoning decision on the airport property and scheduled the two emergency hearings after an Aug. 13 public meeting dissolved into chaos.
At that meeting, airport officials and consultants had expected to explain the rezoning, but they were met instead by a hostile crowd of 250 people that crammed into a small room, catcalled and stood on chairs.
County officials and their hired consultants, unprepared for the commotion, stood on chairs and quieted the room with one microphone.
This time around, the meeting was civil.
County officials rented a bigger room, scheduled a 30-minute presentation and set up six microphones, with one in the front for people to make comments.
For two hours, people used it. They talked about dishes shaking in the cupboards and jet fuel splattered in their backyard pools. A few invited Pinellas County commissioners to come out to their homes for coffee in the early morning hours and listen to the predawn overhead ambience of air traffic. A petition seeking to put the expansion to a referendum vote circulated before the meeting began, and many in the room signed it.
Others requested that the commissioners halt the runway expansion, which has already been approved and is scheduled to be complete by 2005. Some want to see a larger buffer between the airport and Feather Sound. A few called for establishing an authority to oversee the airport instead of the commission.
One woman, a real estate agent who sells homes in Feather Sound, suggested that the county close the airport and make it a shopping mall.
"Shame on us for not knowing (about past public meetings)," said Nancy Riley, the real estate agent. "But I'll tell you what: That's never going to happen again."
One woman asked airport director Tom Jewsbury where he lives. Odessa, he said.
"I invite you to come to my house, sit by my pool, have coffee or a Coca-Cola and listen to your airport," Lora Spagnolo of Feather Sound said. "Just make sure you do it when UPS is landing.
For their part, county officials listened patiently. Commissioner Karen Seel accepted invitations to visit homes affected by the noise. County Administrator Steve Spratt gathered phone numbers and names from around the room.
A second public information session is scheduled for Sept. 17 at Countryside High School. County officials made it clear that the master plan has yet to be approved.
They were not surprised by the turnout.
"I think it is more of the same strong concerns we've been hearing, many of which are well-reasoned quality-of-life concerns," Spratt said. "We obviously need to increase our efforts to address these concerns."
