One Citizen

UPDATED

May 8,2001

One Citizen’s Commentary

on the

Airport Relocation Feasibility Study

by: Don Hodges

November 16, 2000

Revised: May 8, 2001

Opinion

The attached notes are my analysis of the airport relocation feasibility report prepared by Bechtel Infrastucture for the Bay County Airport Authority, the Authority’s response, and my final response. I have some credentials in the subject matter, having spent several years developing airport facilities and coordinating schedule development for the Technical Operations Division of Delta Air Lines. I am very familiar with professional engineering practice in this area, and I held a professional engineering registration (Georgia) which is presently inactive.

This commentary is not fully developed and perhaps it is late (I did not have $2.4 million of your money to work with), but until a final commitment is made to construct a new airport, I believe the citizens of Bay County should consider any information available to enable their support or opposition to the project.

The commentary is not limited to whether we CAN build a new airport, rather it considers whether we SHOULD do it, and when. The site under consideration is appropriate, but the project is 12 to 20 years premature in my opinion.

These comments were delivered to Randy Curtis on October 21, 2000, and I received his reply on November 15, 2000. My final comments in response were added today. I have not appeared at these site selection workshops because of the volume of my comments, preferring to give my input to the responsible parties and await their response. If there is an error in my comments, I will gladly correct it as I have done in this response.

As a native Bay county citizen, I have not just blindly opposed the project, but presented some alternatives for your consideration. I do not intend to carry this opposition to the "bitter end", and I will not be lying down in front of any bulldozers at Burnt Mill Creek! This will be my last public statement on the matter unless I am asked about it.

Note: I have been asked to revise and update the comments, thus this revision dated May 8, 2001.

I appreciate and will respond to any comments you have on this package.

Browsing Note: The file is in Adobe Acrobat, and you will need the Acrobat Reader on your computer to view it. Your screen may be blank for several minutes during the download. If you want a hardcopy, use the printer icon in the Acrobat Reader frame to preserve the formatting.