Opinion: Airport is an important asset to St. Petersburg

Since the Times has itself a "stifling sense of entitlement" when it comes to fair and accurate editorializing about Albert Whitted Municipal Airport, I have to respond with factual information. Albert Whitted is important to the city of St. Petersburg because it is a viable economic contributor to the local and state economies. It is not a "quaint convenience for the few private pilots who use it." Even the Times uses the airport's aircraft when it wants to take aerial photos. You fail to mention that the airport provides a total economic impact of more than $21,545,000 to the city and Florida economy. This figure is from the city of St. Petersburg's economic evaluation of the airport's importance.

This total economic impact is based on not only the 150-plus people (I am one of those people) who are directly employed at the airport, but also on the local purchasing of goods and services and paying taxes to the city. The $21-million figure includes more than $8,600,000 just for the economic contribution from the airport directly.

Can the Council of Neighborhood Associations define the contribution of a park and condos? Be specific with your dollars, please.

By voting on July 5 to accept Federal Aviation Administration money for runway improvements, the City Council has assured the FAA that it will continue to operate Albert Whitted Airport for another 20 years. Any alternative use of the land other than an airport will require FAA concurrence. An urban village such as proposed by architect Tim Clemmons in a Times article on July 1, is not an acceptable alternative use to the FAA.

Talking about closing the airport and building condos is not serving the best interests of St. Petersburg's residents. We can quantify the future costs of the airport, the airport's total economic impact and its place in the national air transportation system. Can CONA quantify what replacing the airport will really contribute to the city?

St. Petersburg needs this airport. I for one intend to continue to make the public aware of the vital importance of general aviation airports, such as Albert Whitted.
-- Jack W. Tunstill, Seminole

See the true value of Albert Whitted

Re: Taking off or grounded? July 1.

I am again appalled that a misinformed few could possibly believe our community would somehow benefit by replacing Albert Whitted Municipal Airport with condominiums, apartments, hotel rooms and shops. For years, the majority of voters in this city have made it clear that they do not want any new construction on city-owned waterfront property. There is already a lack of infrastructure, specifically potable water and roads, needed to support this ever-growing metropolis.

Architect Tim Clemmons' proposal would have us believe that Albert Whitted airport is not vital to our community and that 175 wealthy aircraft owners have the exclusive run of this facility. Nothing could be further from the truth. Albert Whitted is one of St. Petersburg's most valuable business resources.

With more than 100,000 operations (takeoffs and landings) a year, Albert Whitted contributes as a major reliever airport to both Tampa International and St. Petersburg-Clearwater International. Should this facility disappear, it would greatly overburden the area's other airports.

I am representative of the many businesspersons who have relied upon this airport for years. We use Albert Whitted as a transportation hub from which we create and sustain business, ultimately bringing dollars back into our local economy. Additionally, every year dozens of people from all walks of life learn to fly at Albert Whitted's flying club. This club has nearly 1,000 members. Many of these student pilots will go on to help alleviate the pilot shortage now being experienced by our country's airlines.

This airport is a public resource and it always has been. As a sponsor of the Experimental Aircraft Association's Young Eagles flights, I help kids from all economic backgrounds experience flight for the first time without any cost to them. I do this without reimbursement or government support. Since March, I've flown more than 20 enthusiastic, young kids. I've also lead three tours for more than 70 preschool-aged children. And I'm only one of many pilots participating in programs like these. In other words, this airport is accessible. Furthermore, Albert Whitted also supports Civil Air Patrol search and rescue and Bayflight medical helicopters. Both of these are invaluable services to our community. Where are they to go if this airport is abandoned?

The worst thing we, as a community could do, is push through another huge development project without considering the long-term impact for our children and future generations. Once and for all our mayor and City Council should look through the gloss of pie-in-the-sky proposals to see the true value of Albert Whitted. They should make a firm commitment to airport improvements and a new terminal building. By doing this, they will once and for all put this issue to bed.
-- Richard W. Carr Jr., St. Petersburg

Area's air traffic needs Whitted

Albert Whitted Municipal Airport needs to be kept open. Despite the idea of developing the land for other uses, the airport serves a vital interest. Pinellas County only has three public use airports: Albert Whitted, St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport and Clearwater Executive Airpark. The problem with closing Albert Whitted is dealing with all the planes and the daily operations it serves as part of the national airspace system.

Some would say, move the planes to St. Petersburg-Clearwater. But that airport has its existing general aviation traffic plus airline traffic, UPS traffic and U.S. Coast Guard aircraft. The last thing St. Petersburg-Clearwater wants is to have an additional 175-plus local planes and the additional traffic that would normally go to Albert Whitted to tie up traffic there. Folks, runways can only handle so much traffic.

Then you say the air traffic can go to Clearwater Executive. But it is packed already. There is no way it could handle additional traffic.

Albert Whitted is a reliever airport for small planes. It draws traffic away from St. Petersburg-Clearwater and Tampa International, allowing those airports to deal with the 727s and 747s of the world.

Maybe what Pinellas County needs to do finally is to create an aviation authority like Hillsborough's to buy all the airports and run them.

Keep the airport open. It is more valuable open as an airport than I think most people realize.
-- Stephen Donaldson, Dade City

Don't pave over history

I was taken aback when I heard that the Council of Neighborhood Associations told the St. Petersburg City Council that the land on which Albert Whitted Municipal Airport sits would be better utilized as new development. Hundreds of new condos and restaurants were part of this proposal.

This land is the location of the birthplace of commercial aviation where the first scheduled commercial airline flight took place in 1914 from St. Petersburg to Tampa. What would aviation pioneer Tony Jannus have to say about this travesty! Let's try and preserve some of our history rather than quickly and hastily "developing" on top of it.
-- Bob Garton Jr., St. Petersburg

A matter of military medicine

Re: Medical school admission by merit, editorial, July 5.

"No one, beyond (Michael) Spinelli seems to approve of this idea." Isn't that a tragedy? A father whines to a legislator who sneaks through an amendment, which ironically doesn't actually benefit his pal's son (who by reports seems not to have either wanted or needed it, anyway).

We must depend on the courts, or further legislative action, to expunge this outrage, or -- or what?

I agree with the Times: Let's get rid of this amendment, as is, except with an open mind toward prompt revision or replacement, as needed. Next time, the legislators should get their facts from the Department of Defense, the service academies and the Association of American Medical Colleges. The newspaper should interview a person waiting to receive care at MacDill Air Force Base, a patient at a VA hospital who is concerned that his doctor is a foreign medical graduate, and a young person wondering whether accepting military help with college expenses will impair his chances to go to medical school.

Our public medical schools shouldn't withhold straightforward information about their admission policies and practices (until after a provision they object to has become law). There should be no defamation by direct statement or innuendo of service academy graduates. This was emphasized by statistics from our medical schools showing that service academy applicants, before this provision, were being accepted at rates that would be many times higher than those for their civilian college competitors.

Indisputably, Florida must regularly, dependably, produce a fair share of quality doctors who have a commitment to treat service personnel, veterans and their families. (The source is incidental; it's the contract we need.) We just might be doing so already, though confirmation has been too hard to obtain, and too incomplete to relieve us of the need for, at least, a legislative mandate for better reporting.

All evidence, even that cited in opposition, says that Florida can serve the public good uncompromisingly. Indeed, some of the special characteristics of military applicants really ought to be considered as a higher standard for applicants across the board. If the misnamed "Spinelli amendment" is not the only, or best approach, and I don't believe it is, there is no reason or decency in killing it -- and the quest as well.

The issues are complex. Some are awkward for those grappling with them to confess. However, they remain more real and significant to the beneficiaries of military medicine than they have seemed to the parties in this political squabble. Ultimately, the "no ones" will honor those who champion novel and effective solutions, over those who crow over an apparent political victory.
-- Pat Byrne, Seminole

A contradictory position

Re: Medical school admission by merit, editorial.

Anyone purporting to be objective and fair-minded must agree with the admirable opinion expressed in this editorial. After all, how could any reasonable person oppose the idea that medical schools should make every effort to "produce the finest doctors possible," where college graduates "compete for the highly coveted seats in our medical schools"?

Nevertheless, those wishing to advance their own self-serving, sociopolitical agenda disagree with this logical editorial premise. Those biased advocates do not want to discuss competitive "admission by merit." They instead promulgate euphemistically titled "affirmative action" programs. They have argued for decades that (certain) students should be "... qualified for medical school only with a boost from a politically imposed quota."

In view of the fact that the liberal St. Petersburg Times' editorials have always been unequivocal in their endorsement of so-called affirmative action, it appears that the Medical school admission by merit editorial is a hypocritical contradiction of the Times' true philosophy.
-- Anthony J. Wickel, Clearwater

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