Opinion: As an airport, Whitted land is safe for future

I agree with your editorial of Oct. 28 (Overlooking airport details). St. Petersburg's Albert Whitted Airport would tie up the land for 20 years or maybe 50 years. That is the basis for my reasoning. We have no obvious need for that land now. However, 50 years from now our children will be happy that we kept this land in trust for a possible alternate use that we cannot envision today. (Maybe a stadium site, transportation hub or Olympics venue.)

In the meantime, the airport needs to be kept up to the high standards of all our city property, especially if a majority of the upgrades can be done with federal and state money. One important reason to move on this issue now is that our congressman is chairman of the Appropriations Committee -- an opportunity that will not last forever. I do agree that the sewer plant should be moved off our waterfront as funds become available.

When I came to office, I started this discussion with a plan I called the "Port Initiative," which includes all the waterfront property in the port area. Some of my ideas include leasing the Bayfront Center to the University of South Florida, which would save the city more than $2-million a year in operating and capital improvement costs. The school could then build a first-class joint-use conference center, perhaps the first major conference center on the west coast of Florida. The Mahaffey Theater would remain and could become part of a future arts program at USF, which would only enhance the present situation for the theater.

We could close or narrow Bayshore Drive starting at Florida Power Park/Al Lang Field and create a green, linear park that could pass Bayfront Center around the corner to the airport tower.

The port could be dredged with federal money and used as a port-of-call for cruise ships. (A cruise ship docks in the morning, unloads passengers for the day to visit our museums, shops and waterfront, and departs that evening.) A port-of-call would require only minor improvements to landside facilities currently at the port.

USF would continue to expand as planned with 5,000 live-in students out of a total of 10,000 students. The school has a wonderful marine science program currently using the port. Maybe a 4-year pilot training aviation program could be added utilizing the airport. I hope to open debate on these issues -- it's about time.
-- John Bryan, council member, District 2, St. Petersburg

Airport's importance is overlooked

Re: Best use of airport land, Oct. 24.

The Times editorially sneers at continuing to operate Albert Whitted Airport in downtown St. Petersburg. The paper notes rather backhandedly that, "It is a convenience for a small number of businesses and recreational fliers who can avoid a trip to another field. . ." It is this very convenience that gives the airport its greatest value. If the future of downtown St. Petersburg's growth is to encourage upper-income people to live here -- and that certainly appears to be the trend -- then the airport would be another checkmark on the list of lifestyle amenities to draw such people here. Rather than closing the airport, the city should exploit it. How many downtowns in America can be reached by car, boat or plane?

The airport, the Times complains, "is a luxury for a fortunate few, and "it does not carry its own weight." So what? Governments rightly subsidize facilities to be used by the public at large or that have a utilitarian purpose. Bayflite helicopters refuel and seek maintenance at Whitted. Dozens of planes fly in and out every day. That's more than can be said for the Port of St. Petersburg. Millions of dollars were just spent to dredge the harbor there, yet the port seems to do little but warehouse ships. If return on the public dollar was a major determinant of a public facility's value, Tropicana Field never would have been built. (Speaking of "luxury for a fortunate few," priced any Devil Rays tickets lately?)

The Times should look more critically at issues surrounding the future of Albert Whitted Airport. As a graduate assistant at USF St. Petersburg, I am well aware of the campus' need to expand, a fact alluded to in the Times editorial. However, I think the importance of the airport to the downtown area has been understated and overlooked.
-- Melvin E. Baker, St. Petersburg

There's an important money question

Re: Albert Whitted Airport.

As the Planning Commission's representative on the recent advisory committee that reviewed the proposed expansion of the airport, I spent a considerable amount of time learning about the choices. I opposed the plan to expand the runways by 900 feet. However, the airport made a rather strong safety-based argument for a 300-foot extension. That would provide a greater margin of safety for landings and takeoffs.

The major question that your editorials did not address was the possible liability to the federal government that the city may face if we close the airport. Several supporters have told me that the city of St. Petersburg would have to repay the federal government for the grants that we received to maintain and/or improve the airport. That is a many-million-dollar question. It needs to be answered early in discussions of the airport's future.
-- Karl Nurse, St. Petersburg

Whitted serves our community

Re: Overlooking airport details, Oct. 28.

In a stunning example of editorial whining, the writer opposes the proposals of the St. Petersburg City Council and the idea of granting any money to the airport. At least twice a month the airport has to defend itself against attacks by overzealous visionaries with delusions of multipurpose community parks or senior citizen halls of fame. Albert Whitted Airport has already been granted a half-million dollars to improve runway lighting, and has been given a Grant Assurance that the airport will be safe for 20 years from those who would rather have condos, aquariums or facilities for more last-place major league teams.

Have you ever stood at the west side of the airport (near USF) when the winds were from the southeast? For at least two-thirds of the year, the wafting odors from the city's own waste treatment plant are an olfactory treat for those of us who work at the airport. Imagine trying to sell condos! Imagine trying to move the plant elsewhere.

As for the "handful of pilots" who use this "taxpayer-financed clubhouse," I believe you are confusing us with the yacht clubs to the north and south of the airport. Whitted is home to helicopter operations that include Bayflite and Channel 10. There is banner-towing and aerial photography, manatee surveying for the Fish and Wildlife Commission, metro traffic reporting, Civil Air Patrol, charter operations, maintenance facilities, flight instruction, and yes, privately owned aircraft. My students consist of two college kids, a car salesman, a bug-sprayer and a computer programmer. They aren't exactly the "jet-set" that you allude to.
-- Julie-Ann Nydegger, flight instructor, St. Petersburg

Eckerd College has achieved much

While it is indeed true, as your Oct. 27 brief on the appointment of our new vice president for institutional advancement points out, that two-thirds of the Eckerd College endowment was spent without board approval, it is also true that the members of the board pledged back those dollars within six weeks. Most of those pledges have now been received.

It is also true, as you say, that Eckerd has struggled financially for most of its history -- as have all the great private liberal arts colleges in America. Struggling financially in a great cause is a noble enterprise, not a failure.

The truly remarkable part of the story of Eckerd College is not that a 40-year-old college has huge financial challenges, but that a school so young has achieved a national reputation for extraordinary innovation and quality in such an incredibly short period of time.

The glass of Eckerd College is much more than half full.
-- Donald R. Eastman, president, Eckerd College, St. Petersburg

We didn't deserve the Olympics

As a sports-minded and proud resident of the Tampa Bay Area, I would like to offer my personal findings on Tampa's failure to make the cut for the 2012 U.S. Olympic bid:

If you expected otherwise, you were fooling yourself from the get-go. It was just a matter of time until we were pushed out of the running, and it happened much sooner than planned.

Tampa and the state of Florida did not deserve consideration to be a host city for the 2012 Olympiad, where the eyes of the world would focus on our area and how we do things. The Olympiad is a cooperative effort among residents and governments all around the globe where people set aside petty differences in the name of the common good and competition. Tampa Bay has done everything in its past and present to contradict the phrase "cooperative effort," making the idea of Tampa hosting the Games an utter joke in this resident's mind.

Since Pinellas County split away from Hillsborough and St. Petersburg started seeing Tampa as the enemy instead of as an ally, the area has had battles among governments on either side of the bay -- be it county, city or even the state government. The Hatfields and the McCoys are what Pinellas and Hillsborough so easily resemble in their day-to-day dealings with each other over the simplest of matters.

You see no effort for both sides to work together on transportation issues that plague our area; on education issues that are always pressing our families on either side of the bay; in attempts to woo corporate entities to the area, and over precious water.

Cooperation between the two sides of the bay, though in place for this campaign for the 2012 Games, needs to happen for the Tampa Bay area to rise anywhere above the commercialized suburban-sprawl, strip-mall capital that we are known as in the eyes of the rest of the nation.

Tampa Bay needs to do a great deal of growing up before it should be considered to host any games that put us in the world's eye (Goodwill, Pan Am, or the Olympics). Petty squabbling needs to be put aside in planning this community if we are ever going to step out from the shadows and into prominence as a city, region and state.
-- John Fontana, Palm Harbor

Is it time to rethink holiday cards?

Wouldn't it be great to entertain the notion of not sending holiday or Christmas cards this year? Maybe if the government suggested it, a third of the population would adhere to the request, taking some of the burden off the post office personnel during these trying times.

People can either write or e-mail those they care to keep in touch with during the holidays, or pay a personal visit. The money they save in postage and/or cards can be donated to the charity of their choice, of which there are many this year. It may be time to rethink this tradition this year.
-- Linda Gorken, Palm Harbor

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