Sorry . . .Two times almost nothing is still almost nothing.
Homeland Security's list of upcoming courses from July through December is rather sparse: 24 courses, only 16 of which are offered in Oriskany, and most of those are only 1-day affairs. This is hardly worth tying up the old Oneida County Airport Terminal Building, much less than discarding what had been well-maintained runways and other associated facilities.
Can't the OD read the tea-leaves? This was never a serious project.
As I posted back on 12/05/05:
Choosing the Airport for this facility does three things that benefit Mr. Griffo, the County Legislature and our local state-level elected officials (but not the people):This situation has been painful to watch 'develop': 1/1/08, 9/13/07, 8/31/07, 2/27/07, 1/18/07, 3/24/06.
1) It provides an instant solution to the problem of what to do with the Old County Airport -- a problem that they created by choosing to move the airport to Griffiss without first determining a plan for the old one.
2) It ENSURES that Utica-New Hartford-Whitesboro, or the Oneida Nation, or some enterprising entrepreneur (like the one who created a housing development where people had their private planes in their garages), will NOT continue airport operations there -- avoiding potential competition for the new Griffiss facility.
3) Our Albany reps can claim to have "brought home the bacon."
I predict that very little benefit will come of this.
Pull the plug, kick 'em out, and market the old airport as an airport for private use.
3 comments:
Amen to that.
Amen.
Now we need to get the downstate politicians off of our back and watch us grow. Ross Perot coined the phrase “the giant sucking sound” in terms of having NAFTA take good-paying American corporate jobs out of the U.S.A. Our counterpart to the NAFTA “giant sucking sound” here in upstate New York is the downstate politicians who steal our economic development prospects and then buy off our local elected officials with campaign funds at reelection time. The former Oneida County Airport site is one example of this upstate/downstate “sucking sound.” The Homeland Security facility serves only to appease the moving of the Oneida County Airport to Griffiss. Now our elected officials are patting each other on the back as this Homeland Security facility takes prime commercial economic development real estate off of the market. How convenient.
Post a Comment