Taxpayers should have questions about Wittman Regional Airport (KOSH), Oshkosh, Wisconsin

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Letters To The Editor  


I must be a misinformed taxpayer of Winnebago County. I attended the 2014 county budget meeting and asked these three questions concerning tax dollars. No one chose to answer.

1) How does Wittman Regional Airport expect more income next year from the storage of Oshkosh trucks when income from this storage has declined already this year? A shortage of about a half-million dollars of income based on the current situation of Oshkosh not securing new Defense Department contracts seems to be a cautious estimate.

2) Why do we keep spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on the airport fire equipment? Based on Wittman’s status, the Federal Aviation Administration doesn’t require our airport to provide fire service.

3) Since 2011, we have spent nearly $200,000 on promotions at the airport. How do we measure success? About $75,000 was spent to list Wittman as the “official airport” of a cable TV show produced in Canada. More than $14,000 was spent on blogs written by a firm in Chicago. More than $6,000 was spent on some sort of writing contest for Oshkosh school students. The answers must be so obvious that almost no one on the Winnebago County Board or our executive raised an eyebrow. What I did learn is that Wittman is off-limits when questioning spending.

Buckle up, fellow taxpayers. In the near future, the airport advisory board wants to build a new terminal building. Yes, a new terminal/bus station.

Dumb questions? Maybe; maybe not. It seems everyone at the meeting must have known the answers but me, the taxpayer.

Larry Last,

Oshkosh

Source:    http://www.postcrescent.com