After fighting expansion plans, Ava VanNahmen is told she will lose a park board seat.
By MICHAEL SANDLER
Published November 13, 2003
VanNahmen
CLEARWATER - An outspoken critic of expansion plans at St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport has been asked to leave a government advisory board.
Ava VanNahmen, who has served on the county's park board since 2000, received a letter Wednesday from Commissioner Ken Welch notifying her that she will not be reappointed for 2004. Welch has appointed VanNahmen each of the past three years to the park board, a citizens advisory panel that considers park issues before they are heard by the County Commission.
"I think when you are so adamantly opposed and personally critical of the commission," Welch said in an interview, "then it shouldn't really surprise anyone that you might not be appointed to represent a commissioner the next time around. I don't think that's rocket science."
VanNahmen, who lives in Feather Sound, has been at the center of what has become a controversial debate over the airport's future.
County Commissioners oversee the airport and are considering a master plan that calls for investing as much as $223-million to expand the facility during the next 20 years.
Feather Sound is one of two communities that would be directly affected by changes at the airport, and VanNahmen has emerged as a leader among the hundreds of people opposing the expansion. She VanNahmen said the county cannot justify spending so much money on the airport when Tampa International Airport is just across the bay.
This summer she wrote an article that appeared in a Feather Sound community newspaper challenging the county's plans to transform 120-acre Airco Golf Course on airport property into an industrial park. She also was in a group of residents who shouted and protested at an August meeting about the airport that turned into chaos and has helped organize a group called NOPE - Neighbors Opposing Pinellas Excesses.
VanNahmen thinks she's being punished for speaking her mind.
"I'm disappointed," she said. "I've made a lot of contributions to that board. I feel like I can make a lot more contributions. I'm just your average citizen who cares about the community. I care about greens space, Airco Golf Course, pollution. I can't think about what I did that would make him want to discard me from the board."
Welch acknowledged that the airport matter played a role in his decision and said that while he and VanNahmen have been able to disagree in the past - such as the time she supported an unsuccessful proposal for a nude beach at Fort DeSoto Park - he said her tone has changed.
She recently forwarded him an e-mail - written by another airport opponent - that labeled the commissioners the "insignificant Seven" and called for their removal in the next election.
In his letter, Welch cited the "negative impact of other County issues" on the relationship between VanNahmen and the county as the reason to appoint another person in 2004.
He said he already has a new person in mind and will make the appointment in December, when the commission fills slots on its advisory boards.
"I think the message is you can always disagree," Welch said. "But when you disagree, it ought to be in a civil manner."
