Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Fosters
ROCHESTER — Before councilors reversed course Tuesday yet again on the city owning Skyhaven Airport — this time saying they don’t want it — it looked like nothing would change. Residents became angry.
“Some people have no honor,” Fred Leonard shouted while voting was taking place. “There’s going to be a revolution.” Then he threw a sign in the direction of Councilor Geoffrey Hamann, who again voted for ownership, despite hearing from more than 50 constituents who opposed the idea.
Dozens of residents, thinking their pre-meeting protest of about 80 people was for naught, began to shout at councilors and leave the chamber. “You won’t get in again,” a woman warned the first-term Hamann and others supporting a city-run airport.
Mayor John Larochelle sought order — reminding the boisterous crowd it is illegal to interrupt a public meeting — and voting resumed. The tally showed a 7-5 vote that, for now at least, ended planning for local control of the 175-acre, Route 108 facility.
The vote did away with last month’s 9-4 pro-ownership vote orchestrated by Councilor Doug Lachance. On this night, councilors were reconsidering last month’s vote, which successfully rescinded the February 6-6 vote that failed to advance a city position and signaled to the state that it should plan for the Pease Development Authority to be the next owners.
Voting against ownership Tuesday were Councilors Pete Lachapelle, Ralph Torr, Chuck Grassie, Ray Lundborn, Brian Labranche, Deputy Mayor Elaine Lauterborn and Mayor John Larochelle.
Voting for ownership were Lachance, Hamann, Charles Gerrish, Ray Varney and Sandra Keans.
Councilor Rick Healey, who supported ownership the second time around, was excused from the meeting; a colleague said he was traveling with family.
Torr, Grassie and Lauterborn all supported local control before, but Tuesday was different.
Lauterborn said though she supports the airport, the city can’t even take on the minor costs of maintaining it. “The smallest percentage of the money that is the responsibility of Rochester is still a significant amount of money,” she said. “I do believe the PDA is in a better position to deal with the capital costs” necessary to bolster the airport.
Torr had second thoughts coming into the meeting after reviewing budgetary information for the last couple of weeks as a member of a committee paving the way for local control. The benefits he saw are “so marginal and after you go out three years who knows what’s going to happen.”
Grassie said he changed his mind after “I looked at more of the information.” He said the public outcry had nothing to do with his vote — in fact, he said, he considered sticking to his previous vote to rebuke some of the public’s comments.
Hamann’s decision to again back the airport was surprising. Though he said he personally supports the city running the facility, he found residents who contacted him disagree and “I can’t vote against everyone.”
Lachance, who’s been chairing a special committee creating an airport management structure, pleaded with colleagues to put off the vote for two weeks so he and committee members Keans, Varney and Torr could present a budget.
“We feel that the budget is complete,” he said. “It shows a very positive cash flow. … We believe as a committee that the budget we’re going to propose is very, very real. We don’t feel it’s misleading to anybody.”
Lundborn, who pushed for the third vote, took exception when Lachance said it was wrong to vote on a night charged with resident emotion and not wait for more information.
“We’re not doing this at 10:30 at night after a closed-door meeting,” Lundborn said to cheers. During the protest, residents expressed frustration with the second vote coming not only out of the blue, but so late at night.
Lachance took offense, saying Skyhaven was never discussed in the April nonpublic session. Residents had little sympathy, with several of them mocking him with sarcastic cries.
Neither Lachance’s committee nor City Manager John Scruton ever presented their own budget, instead relying on information gleaned from consultants and members of the Skyhaven Airport Operations Commission. But some councilors and city administration came to agree that the airport would operate in the black for at least the next three years, while commission members presented a positive financial outlook of operational and capital costs.
The state Bureau of Aeronautics, which has overseen the airport for the state, shows the airport running a $2,600 deficit through the end of March, but anticipated revenue will give the airport as much as a $40,000 surplus, according to the commission.
Lachance and other Skyhaven enthusiasts never trumpeted city control as a way to generate loads of revenue or lower the tax rate. Supporters said the city would gain control of a significant asset that would pay for itself and potentially generate economic activity that could drive up commercial land values.
Keans made a last-ditch effort to block a change. She stressed the city would only have to pay 2.5 percent of capital costs like extending the runway under existing arrangements with the Federal Aviation Administration.
“We hear it’s a black hole. It’s a black hole because the state of New Hampshire was running it …” before a successful fixed-base operator got on the scene, she said.
Some councilors never saw the benefit — and residents worrying the tax rate will rise by $3.99 under the proposed tax rate said there was no way the city should consider taking on additional responsibilities.
“I said I will keep an open mind,” said Lachapelle, “but it’s losing money. … It’s not going anywhere. It’s always going to be an airport.”
Lundborn said local government should be focused on providing essential services, like road repairs, and not enter the “airport business.”
Before the meeting, residents surrounded City Hall, waving signs denouncing “sneaky late-night maneuvers” on the airport and stressing the need for “roadways — not runways.” Leo Gosselin came wearing a denim shirt with a fake knife driven into his back.
For Donna Moulton, it was the second protest she ever attended. The first had to do with steel traps and foxes. “It’s just going to add one more thing to the budget — no matter what they say,” said Moulton. “Housing and the economy is down and the cost of living is up. So why take anything else on when people are just trying to keep it together? Why do something you don’t have to?”
For Chuck Slone, it was his first protest since the Vietnam War. He said he can’t understand how a community could explore running an airport that for many years never turned a profit when taxes are set to rise unless deep budget cuts are made.
Residents waited to greet — and jeer — councilors as they arrived for the meeting. In interviews, they expressed distrust of their local officials and amazement at their decision to take on an airport.
Asked about councilors who claim the airport will be paid for by users and not raise taxes, former Mayor Fred Steadman replied: “They said that about the Opera House and it’s cost us money and it still does.” Next year’s proposed budget includes funds for overhead costs at the Opera House.
“To me,” Steadman said of the airport, “it appears it’s a place for the … rich … to store their toys.”
“If it was a money-making proposition, the state would not give it away,” said Priscilla Boudreau. “We’re going to get an airport but for 37 years” — how long she’s lived here — “we can’t even fix our roads.”
The City Hall parking lot got crowded before the meeting started, and a police officer was ready to ticket Mitch Michaud’s Ford if he didn’t move it. “It’s the only thing that runs right around here,” he said to laughs.
“It doesn’t matter if we run it, if the PDA runs it — it’s not leaving town,” Michaud said of Skyhaven. “We don’t need the burden.”
The latest state law gives the city until May 30 to make a decision or see Skyhaven go to Pease.
There was no talk of there being a fourth vote to decide the issue, which has been kicking about for several years. But Scruton wasn’t going to speculate about whether it was really over, and Keans said “one never knows.”