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UNC seeks alternative to Horace Williams, RDU for AHEC

Posted on June 21, 2007 by Staff

At a legislative hearing on the impact of closing Horace Williams airport, UNC officials confirmed that they would support plans to re-open a search for an alternative site to Horace Williams and Raleigh Durham International.

In his presentation last week at a joint hearing of key House and Senate appropriations subcommittees, Kevin Fitzgerald, UNC’s top lobbyist, told legislators that the school would support another look to see if an alternative exists to Horace Williams.

The university gave up on a previous effort to find a suitable site within a short travel distance after plans developed to move the Area Health Educations Center’s Medical Air operations to a new facility at RDU.

But now with several key physicians in the AHEC program saying openly that services to the rest of the state would suffer if the flights move to RDU, the prospects of that move are in doubt.

At a hearing last Thursday before members of the House and Senate appropriations subcommittees on education and health and human services, several doctors questioned the plan.

Dr. Bill Henry, chair of UNC’s pediatric cardiology division, set out the case against the move, calling the university’s stance that it’s either Horace Williams or RDU “a false choice.”

Henry — noting that appearing at the legislature in opposition to the move to RDU was not a “career-enhancing” move — said that while the university says it has thoroughly looked at the issue, there are many who disagree with the conclusion that RDU is the right place for Medical Air. He encouraged legislators to ask the hard questions.

“Ask the people participating [in AHEC] and you’ll get a very different view,” he said.

University officials, led by Fitzgerald and Carolina North executive director Jack Evans, reiterated the school’s position on the move and its support of AHEC.

Evans was pressed by Rep. Rick Glazier of Fayetteville, the location of a key AHEC facility, on whether the school had looked at something other than one, large facility — possibly scattering the uses among other lands already owned by the university.

Evans said the vision for Carolina North is the opportunity to create a “critical mass” by brining together a number of institutes and centers scattered around town.

Dr. James Loehr, a pediatric cardiology specialist, said he’s worried that patient care will suffer. Right now, he said, he can be in an ICU at the hospital at 6 a.m. and at another clinic elsewhere in the state an hour later.

“The jewel that makes this work is Horace Williams,” he said. Being able to take the doctors to the patients means families will miss less work and the children less school. “I challenge you to carefully consider finding an alternative to this closing.”

Dr. Marianne Muhlebach, a pediatric lung specialist, said many of the families of the asthma sufferers she sees are poor and would not be able to travel to Chapel Hill for the treatments.

Medical Air pilots supported the doctors’ assertion, saying that not only would there be additional travel time to the airport, but that waiting for clearances to taxi and take off and the growth at RDU would add a considerable amount of time to the flights.

Alan Fearing, who has flown AHEC doctors around the state for 37 years, said the quick turnaround time at Horace Williams would be lost at RDU. “In my opinion, the move to RDU, with its ground delays and flight delays, will result in attrition,” he said.

Several legislators said they didn’t want to see the school’s desire to get rolling on the new project interfere with AHEC operations.

Orange County Representative Verla Insko, who chaired last week’s meeting, said a search for another airport site is still in consideration.

“I’m hearing that people have not given up on finding an alternative site,” she said Wednesday.

Insko said that neither the university nor Orange County is likely to take the lead in opening up another search, leaving legislators with the task of determining what entity might conduct the process.

One idea might include forming a new airport authority that could work to get federal matching grants, she said. Another would be to form an intergovernmental work group.

Insko said that as evidenced by the discussion last week, there is strong sentiment among legislators to not do anything that might hurt the AHEC program.

At the hearing, AHEC executive director Thomas Bacon said for now the hangar plans at RDU are “on hold.” The project, which is estimated to cost more than $3 million, is in the design phase but has not gone out for bid. UNC-Chapel Hill’s Board of Trustees approved a preliminary design for the facility in March, but also reiterated a promise that they would not close Horace Williams until AHEC was in its new home.

Evans and other university officials are due to present the last in a series of conceptual plans for the Carolina North project Thursday (June 21). The presentations are scheduled for 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. in Room 2603 at the UNC School of Government.

A concept plan for the new campus is slated to go before the school’s  board of trustees  in July.

The school’s Carolina North homepage is at http://carolinanorth.unc.edu

12 thoughts on “UNC seeks alternative to Horace Williams, RDU for AHEC”

  1. Gordon Kramon says:
    June 24, 2007 at 3:24 pm

    Please look at the original plan of Chapel Hill North

    It was built around the airport

    Gordon Kramon
    Chapel Hill

  2. Bess C. says:
    June 25, 2007 at 10:29 am

    Building Chapel Hill North around the airport is an irresponsible idea at the very least. The idea was 86’d when the realities of legal liability (the FAA would never approve building as close to the runway as that plan projected), logistical complications (e.g., trying to build research labs able to deal with vibrations from the runway), and added ecological problems dawned on people (an airport doesn’t preserve greenspace if you’ve already got several thousand sq. ft. of runway concrete and still have to take down trees elsewhere to build).

  3. J. Nicholls says:
    July 20, 2007 at 12:02 pm

    Mr. Kramon –

    Could it be you just so happen to own a private plane that you keep at Horace Williams Airport? No wonder you and your fellow fatcat flyers are so eager to see Carolina North go up around the airport.

  4. Bess C. says:
    July 26, 2007 at 12:30 pm

    Kramon wrote a misleading letter to the N&O about AHEC and what it does. If he isn’t a pilot himself, I’ll drink a mug of Jet A.

  5. Bess C. says:
    July 26, 2007 at 12:33 pm

    More to the point, Mr. Kramon, the “first” plan of Carolina North (presumably you mean the ASG plan ca. 2000) including building so close to the runway that the FAA would have been horrified. You can’t have it both ways — if it wasn’t advisable for the town to build near HWA in the first place, why is it now so desirable to plan CN development abutting it now?

  6. Gordon Kramon says:
    July 29, 2007 at 8:03 am

    Mr Nicholls

    No, I do not have an airplane.

    I do know some people who have received treatment from traveling AHEC doctors. As far as I know…none of them were “fatcats”

  7. Jim says:
    July 30, 2007 at 4:11 pm

    Mr. Kramon –

    There is a Gordon Kramon officially listed as the owner of an airplane which is based in Chapel Hill. Is this an error?

    Please refer to the website:

    http://www.aircraftone.com/aircraft/registrations/chapel-hill-nc-27514.asp

  8. Jane Nicholls says:
    July 31, 2007 at 6:34 am

    Oops. I just checked out the aircraft registration site above.

    Looks like Mr. Kramon (or the website) has some explaining to do.

  9. J. Nicholls says:
    August 3, 2007 at 6:21 am

    I just checked out the aircraft registration site above and Jim is correct.

  10. J. Nicholls says:
    August 7, 2007 at 9:50 am

    Nary a peep from Mr. Kramon. Could it be he was outed?

  11. Gordon Kramon says:
    August 12, 2007 at 6:27 pm

    Ms Nicholls

    No airplane based at Horace Williams.

    I do however question your ties to UNC

  12. J Nicholls says:
    August 14, 2007 at 3:51 pm

    Mr. Kramon –

    No, I have no ties to UNC – honest. I’m just a parent concerned about an airport runway within a mile of five public schools.
    Re: your comment – “No, I do not have an airplane,” I’m confused.

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