
{"id":475,"date":"2007-06-21T08:21:09","date_gmt":"2007-06-21T16:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2007\/06\/21\/unc-seeks-alternative-to-horace-williams-rdu-for-ahec\/"},"modified":"2007-06-21T08:21:09","modified_gmt":"2007-06-21T16:21:09","slug":"unc-seeks-alternative-to-horace-williams-rdu-for-ahec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2007\/06\/21\/unc-seeks-alternative-to-horace-williams-rdu-for-ahec\/","title":{"rendered":"UNC seeks alternative to Horace Williams, RDU for AHEC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>In his presentation last week at a joint hearing of key House and Senate appropriations subcommittees, Kevin Fitzgerald, UNC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s top lobbyist, told legislators that the school would support another look to see if an alternative exists to Horace Williams. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Medical Air operations to a new facility at RDU.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Bill Henry, chair of UNC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pediatric cardiology division, set out the case against the move, calling the university\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stance that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s either Horace Williams or RDU \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a false choice.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Henry \u00e2\u20ac\u201d noting that appearing at the legislature in opposition to the move to RDU was not a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153career-enhancing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d move \u00e2\u20ac\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ask the people participating [in AHEC] and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get a very different view,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n<p>University officials, led by Fitzgerald and Carolina North executive director Jack Evans, reiterated the school\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s position on the move and its support of AHEC.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d possibly scattering the uses among other lands already owned by the university.<\/p>\n<p>Evans said the vision for Carolina North is the opportunity to create a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153critical mass\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by brining together a number of institutes and centers scattered around town.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. James Loehr, a pediatric cardiology specialist, said he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The jewel that makes this work is Horace Williams,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. Being able to take the doctors to the patients means families will miss less work and the children less school. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I challenge you to carefully consider finding an alternative to this closing.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Medical Air pilots supported the doctors\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 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.<\/p>\n<p>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. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In my opinion, the move to RDU, with its ground delays and flight delays, will result in attrition,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Several legislators said they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to see the school\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s desire to get rolling on the new project interfere with AHEC operations.<\/p>\n<p>Orange County Representative Verla Insko, who chaired last week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s meeting, said a search for another airport site is still in consideration.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m hearing that people have not given up on finding an alternative site,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>At the hearing, AHEC executive director Thomas Bacon said for now the hangar plans at RDU are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153on hold.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>A concept plan for the new campus is slated to go before the school\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0 board of trustees\u00c2\u00a0 in July.<\/p>\n<p>The school\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Carolina North homepage is at <a href=\"http:\/\/carolinanorth.unc.edu\">http:\/\/carolinanorth.unc.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s top&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}