St. Petersburg City Council members have one last chance to get it right on the upcoming referendum on Albert Whitted Airport. They are scheduled to meet this afternoon to decide on ballot language that cannot be changed after Thursday.
What role should the council play? Member Jay Lasita provided the best advice: "Our job is not to save the airport or to put a park there. It is to put a fair choice on the ballot." A fair choice already exists. After gathering 15,000 signatures from registered voters, a citizens group won a place on the Nov. 4 ballot for their question. It will ask city residents if they want a park on the airport property. If voters reject the park, then the airport remains. So the council should just stay out of the way and let voters decide this matter.
Fairness is the last thing on the minds of some council members, however. They are talking about adding one or two more airport questions to the ballot, hoping to tilt the outcome in favor of airport users.
The wording of one question, as proposed by City Attorney John Wolfe, would ask voters to amend the City Charter to keep Albert Whitted open "forever." Forever is a long time for an airport operation that will require a taxpayer subsidy of $325,000 this year. The other question would ask city residents to waive their right to approve grants for the airport, even though each grant would give the Federal Aviation Administration control of the public land for 20 years. At least two council members, James Bennett and Bill Foster, want to combine the two questions, which would force a single vote on two separate issues.
Confusion is the goal. In fact, anticipating that both the park and airport questions could be approved, the council has proposed another ballot item that would settle ties by saying the question that receives the most affirmative votes wins. Of course, a tiebreaker wouldn't be needed if the council didn't put a contradictory question on the ballot.
Airport users could have put their own question on the ballot, but they would have had to collect 15,000 signatures, as the park supporters did. Maybe the airport users thought they couldn't get that many signatures for their cause. Or maybe they believe that they control a majority of the City Council - so why go to all that trouble?
Council members are supposed to represent all city residents equally. If they do so in this case, they won't try to confuse or influence the outcome.
