St. Petersburg Voters Overwhelmingly Decide To Keep
Airport
Albert Whitted Airport
in St. Petersburg (FL) has passed a sort of vote for confidence.
The citizens of St. Pete overwhelmingly booted the notion of
creating a condo development and perhaps some parkland out of the
historic airport.
The debate drew funds and campaign interventions from the likes
of AOPA and EAA.
Airport and park supporters have been fighting over Whitted's
future since May. That's when Citizens for a New Waterfront Park
kicked off a campaign to put a question on the November ballot
asking residents whether they want to replace the airport with
parkland.
The AOPA got involved, much to the chagrin of local elected
officials. The general aviation advocate pledged $100,000 to fight
efforts to turn Whitted into a park.
The plan called for St. Petersburg to spend up to $42 million in
destroying the airport and either turning it into a park or turning
half of it into a park and selling off the rest. Albert Whitted
handled 102,000 operations between April 2002 and May 2003. That
compares to 200,000 landing/take-off operations at St. Petersburg
International and 237,000 a year at Tampa International. It's not
like Albert Whitted isn't a busy place.
FBO operator and
advocate Jack Tunstill said the campaign had turned ugly in the
week prior to the election, with the opposition resorting to theft
to take out airport support. "We found 53 of our yard signs in a
dumpster," says Jack Tunstill, head of a group that wants to keep
the airport running. "Actually, they were in a recycling bin. (A
local television station) reported that more signs were found in
and around the offices of an attorney who says we should turn it
into a park."
Two of the biggest advocates for turning the airport into a city
park were associated with real estate development, according to
Tunstill. One option in the redevelopment plan called for only 50
percent of the airport to be developed into parkland. That left a
big question mark about the other 50 percent.
Tunstill said, if the measure had passed, voters would probably
decide they wouldn't have wanted to pay the tab for converting 100
percent of the airport to parkland and will opt to allow the city
to sell half the land off to developers by 2011. The St. Petersburg
Times reported, of the $101,000 raised by pro-park forces, $80,000
had come from just two donors: Attorney Larry Beltz and developer
James McDougald. Tunstill figures those two men have an eye on the
future, planning for a day when they can develop the portion of the
airport not reserved as a park.