County board scolded regarding airport museum ‘foot-dragging’
From our weekly issue dated July 9, 2008
Tell the world!
(Photo by Illinois Valley News)
After he and others have devoted two years of dedicated efforts to establish a smokejumper museum at Illinois Valley Airport, the secretary of the group is irritated at Josephine County officials.
In a letter to the county board of commissioners, Roger Brandt, noting that he is not speaking for the Siskiyou Smokejumper Base Museum Project members, said:
“I have worked as a community volunteer on this project and personally invested hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars during the past two years to do everything possible to work with the commissioners to make the nationally significant Siskiyou Smokejumper Base into a working asset for the county.
“I have spent the past two years doing everything you have asked me to do, and all you have done is make me jump through enough hoops for me to start a second career as a circus animal.
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“I am more than willing to get started on this project and work as a community volunteer to help bring tourist spending to the doors of local businesses. But after two years of having this project stalled with harassment, lies and deception, all I can say is that I have better things to do with my time than to continue with this nonsense.”
Brandt further took to task Alex Grossi, county airports manager.
“The fact that the airport manager is ignoring critical safety problems identified by the FAA and spends his time enforcing FAA regulations in an area the FAA did not identify as a problem leads many of us to perceive that (he) is engaging in a contrivance to harass and undermine our attempts to establish a heritage tourism attraction to benefit the businesses of this county,” said Brandt.
“We have brought this to the attention of the commissioners on several occasions with no action taken. We understand you continue to support your employee’s behavior, and support continued disregard for critical airport safety, as well as the many other complaints about airport safety that have been submitted by both of the former Airport Advisory boards.
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“If we were to sign a lease, we could only expect to experience the continuance of this harassment and the preservation of critical safety problems at the airport.”
Brandt said that FAA regulations are strictly enforced in the project area that the group has been trying for the past two years to lease.
“We also observed that critical violations of FAA regulations have been ignored in the critical safety areas of the runway,” Brandt said.
“This has been pointed out to the commissioners in writing at least three times,” he added. “We have also informed you that compliance officers from the FAA came to this airport in 2002 and pointed out to the airport manager problems they considered of ‘notice’ which included the need to level the ground along the runway. As pointed out (in an attached PDF file), this work has not been done and critical safety zones are in severe violation of FAA regulations.
“These officers said nothing about the need to close Smokejumper Way or remove parking at the historic smokejumper base.”
Brandt said that the Siskiyou Smokejumper Base Museum Project is a nonprofit organization that has been working for the past two years to get a lease agreement to establish a heritage tourism attraction at the former Siskiyou Smokejumper Base.
“I cannot speak for the rest of the group,” he said, “but I personally would not sign a lease unless I could be guaranteed” six items. They are the following:
“There will be public access to the site and it will accommodate the audience we will be working to attract.
“There will be adequate parking for handling approximately 15,000 vehicles per year to include accessible parking, turn-around points for buses, RVs and vehicles towing travel trailers. Currently there is no parking available to accommodate any of these needs.
“There will be legal parking for visiting aircraft to assure we can accommodate families who use airplanes for recreation and tourist travel. Currently there is no legal parking for visiting aircraft anywhere at the airport because of ‘FAA compliance’ enforced by the airport manager in the project area.
“Rent to be paid by the project group needs to be reduced by an amount equal to the money and work we invest to renovate historic buildings, make accessibility improvements, make the grounds safe, etc.
“We need to have all our projects pre-approved before signing the lease agreement to avoid the potential for the airport manager to harass us and engage in tactics to stall our ability to succeed.
“This is what has been going on for the past two years,” said Brandt, “with no beneficial outcome for the county. Approval gives us the ability to pursue grants, organize volunteer crews and raise project funds through charitable contributions. Our objective is to benefit local businesses by attracting tourist spending in Josephine County. Harassment of airport lessees can be expected to bring no economic benefit to anyone.
“Remove the eastside taxiway from the ALP. There is no FAA regulation that says we need to have this taxiway and, since it is not in the 1992 Illinois Valley Airport Master Plan, it should have never been added to the 2001 ALP in the first place. Without the eastside taxiway, all the problems with building restriction lines and parking go away. Problem solved.
“Your developer and real estate friends can have their B-II category airport for the big airplanes they think they need to turn Illinois Valley into an industrial Mecca, the FAA will be happy, and Josephine County can have a nationally significant one-of-a-kind heritage tourism attraction.
“It’s an easy and achievable solution that costs nothing to implement.”
Brandt continued that, “I have been told that the commissioners are ‘fed up’ with the delays in obtaining a lease agreement.
“We understand that the reason the commissioners are ‘fed up’ is because you have been told we have been negligent in responding to previous drafts of lease agreements, and you continue to believe this despite the five-page letter sent to you explaining that this is a lie.”
Brandt added, “If the commissioners are unwilling or unable to work with us, you could maybe save all of us a lot of time if you can confirm that none of these six conditions are acceptable and all other alternatives are rejected.
“I can’t speak for the others in the group, but I personally feel that your unwillingness to work with our non-profit community group is your declaration that you are rejecting our offer to set up a heritage tourism site for the benefit of Josephine County’s future economy.”
