Coeur d'Alene Airport (KCOE): What to do next? Hayden sees no benefit to annexation of airport

COEUR d’ALENE — Despite rumors circulating to the contrary, Hayden city officials have no interest in annexing the Coeur d’Alene Airport.

“I see absolutely no benefit” in annexation, Hayden City Council President Roger Saterfiel said last week. “There’s no tax money you’d get. And we don’t want to run an airport.”

The airport is valuable to the area’s economy, he said, and the city will continue to be a good partner with Kootenai County, which owns the airport.

“I don’t see that changing,” Saterfiel said.

The county would have to agree to any annexation, City Administrator Stefan Chatwin said. He said the city hasn’t proposed an annexation.

“We can’t annex the airport unless it’s their desire,” Chatwin said. “The county just simply wouldn’t want to do that.”

Greg Delavan, the longtime but now-former airport manager, said Hayden’s city council considered annexation in the past, but rejected the idea after finding there is little to no benefit. The county also wasn’t interested then.

“I think it was over 10 years ago,” Delavan said.

With the exception of a small strip of land on the west side of the airport, the airport is completely surrounded by the city. Hayden likely will completely surround the airport at some point in the future.

“We love the airport,” Chatwin said. “The airport for the city is hugely important. We don’t want to see it close. That would be horrible.”

The financial gain to the city through annexation would be very limited, he said. The county wouldn’t pay the city money in taxes, and the businesses at the airport would pay very little to the city, he said.

Any suggestion that the city is considering annexation because of the financial gain is “ridiculous,” Chatwin said.

In fact, the city de-annexed a small piece of airport property about four years ago. The airport planned to used the land for hangar space and facilities.

“It didn’t make sense to keep it in the city’s jurisdiction,” Chatwin said. “We were happy to de-annex it out.”

- Source:  http://www.cdapress.com