Airport rebuttal

Editor's Note: Hale Bennett is the pilot referred to in the letter. He relates the story of landing a B-29 at the Silver Springs Airport in 1945 because he couldn't land at Stead. Minden-Tahoe Airport served as an auxiliary training field. Former Minden-Tahoe employee Len Frueh reported the airport was used to train pilots for P-51s.

EDITOR:

It was so gratifying to read the Dec. 16 guest opinion defending the honorable managers and volunteers of Minden-Tahoe Airport against any conspiratorial motivation. It helps to keep concerns over airport growth before the public eye.

Clearly my suggestion of grist for a conspiracy novel stirred some indignation, as is usually the case when one touches a nerve.

As the writer attacked my volunteer credentials, I'm obliged to mention I volunteer with hospice, with a service club, and with the nationwide Service Club of Retired Executives providing free consulting to help small businesses get started or solve problems. Also a veteran, though not the volunteer kind.

On my own I volunteer my modest corporate finance credentials to bringing to public attention some transparency of how county government spends our taxes.

Otherwise we wouldn't know that annual personnel wages and benefits have been so generous they now squeeze out spending to maintain roads, parks, libraries, senior services, etc. Nor that they hide county union negotiations from us.

I most always have facts and figures supporting my assertions.

Erroneous comments by Mr. Schroeder are surprising, given his past service on the Airport Advisory Council. That Silver Springs Airport was not used for pilot training in WWII would be a great surprise to one of its current owners who practiced landing bombers there long ago.

It was another writer who recently stated that Minden's airport was built for P-51 training.

It's a surprise to me if our federal taxes fund FAA grants to airports like Minden. Recent comments in other newspapers protest that the FAA's primary source of funding, fees collected from commercial airport passengers and operations, are diverted to small general aviation airports. That makes future FAA funding undependable.

What my detractor carefully avoided, because it would alarm voters, is the obligation on county taxpayers created every time the airport gets another FAA grant. Every grant contains an "assurance" (a legal obligation) that local taxpayers will maintain the airport for 20 years. The bigger the airport, the bigger the obligation. That means if, or more likely when, FAA funds can no longer maintain small airports, that local taxpayers will be hit for the cost of airport maintenance.

That cost according to the county manager's office is estimated at $2.8 million every five years, or $11.2 million over 20 years. The county would have to raise taxes $560,000 a year. It was the Airport Advisory Commission that brought that subject up in their forums last summer. Worse yet, county financial reports hide that obligation from voters.

Taxpayer-voters have to decide if they want to be sheared with growing financial obligations for the airport.

Jack Van Dien

Gardnerville