Where did all the county's money go?

Factions are staking out positions on the 2010 ballot question to increase weight limits at the airport. Given feeble county attempts to engage the public on why voters should let more and bigger jets land there, I asked my old friend Bo the Builder to weigh in (pardon the pun) on the subject. Bo's affected as much as any Joe Citizen, so I wanted his thoughts on the developing controversy. We met in our favorite coffee house.

"Bo, any thoughts to whether you'd vote in 2010 to increase weight limits at the airport?"

"Now, there's a leading question," Bo replied. "Should I suspect you want to talk about the underlying political dynamics involved? Or the infantile stunt of landing a 737 to prove some obscure point?"

"I thought you'd have opinions. Some folks think expanding airport operations and usage is crucial to Carson Valley growth - whatever growth means. Others think it's just a growing nuisance bringing incremental noise but no added value for Joe Citizen."

"Maybe it's like the famous $24.7 million incentive county commissioners offered to north county mall developers," Bo laughed. "Great for developers but no perceivable benefit to core valley retailers nor Mr. Average Citizen? Somebody wins, somebody loses, outcome is a draw?"

"You have a gift for getting to the crux," I grinned. "So what do you perceive county government and Mr. Citizen got from all the bubble growth of the past 10 years, as well as the airport's sizable increase in landings and takeoffs?"

"Curious, isn't it?" Bo mused. "The construction bubble added maybe 600 homes a year, they built a whole commercial center, they thought that was so great they pledged $25 million for another one, the core towns lost all kinds of retail to the box stores, yet Joe Citizen got no tangible benefit, no community center, no performing arts center, no added libraries, zero, not even the parking garage they added $4 million debt to build but diverted to something else. The airport added $300,000 to county general fund coffers, so the airport task force brags. But where is it all?"

"I thought you'd never ask," I smirked. "That's my cue. One segment of the county did benefit mightily."

"Not me," said Bo, "so who?"

"County wages swallowed it all. In 1979 their pay used up 75 percent of the budget, now it's 82 percent. But that's another conversation. So what about the airport? Increase weight limits or not?"

"That's what I'm driving at," Bo replied. "To get my vote they have to prove I get more than more noise, and I mean prove. Show me the added commerce in the towns. Their pitch that airport operations generate 130 jobs and $300,000 to county government doesn't move me. Threatening me with losing FAA grants doesn't either. If FAA grants require us to maintain what was built with those grants for 20 years, as they say, then the bigger the airport, the bigger risk that FAA leaves us stranded one day and we have to pay for the maintenance. All the threats tell us the FAA is an untrustworthy partner."

"Good tirade," I laughed. "I could add the FAA is funded mainly from fees on nationwide airport use which is way off and falling like a rock. So FAA might get squeezed anyway and less generous for maintenance, let alone safety issues and expanded use airport backers want, and leave us holding the bag anyway."

"One parting shot," Bo smiled. "Somebody wrote that government can't be run like a business. The state requires water and sewer companies run as business enterprises. The county-run ones are losing their shirts because they didn't do business planning. The airport is managed as a business but it's a significant contingent risk to county residents. Seems to me Joe Citizen and I could benefit mightily from a business approach by the county, planning revenues and costs ahead for five years. Maybe even the unthinkable, getting some tangible benefits from airport and growth. A master plan is just words, without translating it into dollars."

"Great thought," I admired. "I'll tell the county."

Jack Van Dien is a Gardnerville resident