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.

FMI: www.stpete.org/air.htm