Editor’s note: Following is a response from UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp regarding questions from the county on a proposed airport authority.
Dear Chair Foushee:
Congratulations on your election as chair of the Orange County Board of Commissioners. We look forward to working with you in your new role.
I am writing to respond to former Chairman Jacobs’ letter dated November 19, 2008, and to the questions it presented. But first, let me acknowledge that there are many opinions on the issue of the airport authority and the prospect of building a new airport in Orange County. I want to be sure that the commissioners and the citizens of Orange County know that no site has been identified. Before that can happen, the airport authority will have to commission new site studies.
In answer to your questions:
1. Scope of work: The airport authority’s scope of work will be determined by its members after they are selected and have taken their oaths of office. The authority should support the missions of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina Health Care System and serve the needs of Orange County. The promise of Carolina North dictates that we must close Horace Williams Airport. In the interim, we will move our MedAir operations to RDU as soon as we are able to begin construction of the Law School. If and when a new airport is available, we will relocate MedAir.
A proximate airport will make North Carolina more accessible to our faculty. The AHEC program is an extremely important asset to the university, the Health Care System and to North Carolinians. Our doctors, nurses and other health care professionals provide health and education and care across the state. A short-term move to RDU is workable for AHEC and MedAir. But for the long term, there may be a better alternative closer to home, and that’s what the airport authority is about.
Federal funds will be needed to finance the airport. Those funds come with many restrictions. One is that no airport be sited within a 30-minute average drive of another airport receiving federal funds unless otherwise approved. In our situation, those airports are RDU, Burlington Alamance County Airport, Person County Executive Airport, Sanford Lee County Airport and Siler City Municipal Airport.
Thus certain areas of Orange County will likely be precluded from consideration because they are less than a 30-minute drive from these existing airports. The new studies that the authority would commission also would need to take into account more current traffic and roadway data, along with any other location criteria identified by the authority.
2. Membership qualifications: I anticipate a substantial commitment of time will be required during the initial formation phase of the authority. After that phase is complete, a commitment of three to four hours per month may be required.
3. Fiscal issues: The authority initially will be funded by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina Health Care System. I anticipate that the authority will seek federal and state funding for the many phases of airport development. The “payment in lieu of taxes†matter that the county commissioners raised will need to be researched by the authority after its formation.
4. Public concerns: All of the proceedings of the authority will be subject to the state’s open meetings laws. The authority will develop procedures that will result in a fair and transparent process. Any decision about where the authority will be located or “housed†will be undertaken by the authority.
5. Concurrent authority: The enabling statute is clear that any zoning and/or land use plans for any potential airport are subordinate to Orange County’s zoning laws. The university and Health Care System cannot unilaterally force the development of a new airport. We both supported the language in the legislation that gives Orange County that zoning authority. That’s the way it should be – in the hands of an elected public body. If the Board of Commissioners passes the appropriate ordinances, it will have the power to determine whether an airport can be sited through zoning and the issuance of special use permits. The authority should work closely with the Orange County staff and the Board of Commissioners so that consensus is reached before any siting decision is made. I believe that the use of eminent domain should always be a last resort.
Our plan is to ask the UNC Board of Governors to create the airport authority at its February meeting. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call me or Kevin FitzGerald.
Sincerely,
Holden Thorp
Well, if all that’s true, why don’t we save ourselves all of the trouble and grief and forget the idea of a new airport right now. If the new airport can’t be built without Federal funds and won’t qualify for Federal funds if it is within 30 minutes drive of comparable funded airports, then there is NO possible site in Orange County.
I live about 1/2 mile from the infamous Site H (2005 Talbert & Bright proposed No. 1 alternate site for HWA) and I can drive drive to BUY, TDF, TTA, or RDU in 30 minutes easily. (I haven’t ever driven to Siler City airport.) From my house, the farther you away you drive from any of those airports, the closer you get to another.
There, I’m glad that’s finally settled. Wasn’t that easy?
So you are telling us that the airport authority will serve the mission of the University and the Hospital with Orange County’s needs tossed in as an afterthought. The county should be the one to decide if an aiport is needed and be the one to commission such a study, not the other way round. There is no way this can be a “fair and transparent” process when the body in place to make the decisions is funded by the body that has the vested interest. It is easy to offer that empty promise now that the deck is already stacked in UNC’s favor and eminent domain is there to fall back on should “we the people” not fall in line behind the airport authority which, by nature, can only be impartial. The subtle use of language like “unless otherwise approved” when speaking of the 30 minute from an existing airport rule smack of more behind the scenes power plays. If these plans are so benevolent and beneficial to the citizenry of Orange County why the need to start the process in secrecy and power over dynamics? I’m not buying this!
As usual, UNC-CH top brass pretend in clouds of verbal legalese to be responsive to Orange County citizen concerns. Holden Thorp is in a long and dishonorable tradition in this respect. Meanwhile, they throw their institutional weight around to serve special interests. In this case, those interests are not AHEC and the medical needs of the state since RDU is easily accessible from Chapel Hill, but the university fat cat donors with their private planes and the tiny number of OC resident pilots who want a convenient place to play.