Heated words were exchanged among board members at the end of the Albany-Dougherty Aviation Commission meeting at the Southwest Georgia Regional Airport Monday evening. Shown at the meeting are board members, from left, Dr. William Mayher, Dr. Charles Gillespie, Keith Fletcher and Elizabeth Knowles, the assistant to Transportation Director David Hamilton.
ALBANY — Members of the Albany-Dougherty Aviation Commission exchanged heated words Monday evening during the board’s monthly meeting at the Southwest Georgia Regional Airport over an article that appeared Sunday in The Albany Herald.
Board member Sanford Hillsman called comments made by Chairman Dr. Bill Mayher and board member Dr. Charles Gillespie “reprehensible,” telling the pair of retired physicians, “I think what you did sucks.”
In a story about the future of the airport, Mayher and Gillespie expressed concern that David Hamilton, who had served as director of the city’s Transit Authority until then-interim City Manager Tom Berry named Hamilton transportation director and placed him in charge of both Transit and the airport, had been given too much responsibility for one person. They called for the hiring of a dedicated airport director.
Berry’s promotion of Hamilton came in the wake of former Airport Director Yvette Aehle’s decision to leave the Albany airport to take another position.
“I want to make this clear: I respect David Hamilton and believe him to be a capable and hard-working individual,” Mayher said in the Herald article. “But I believe (Berry) put him in a no-win situation when he put David in charge of the airport and Transit. That’s just too much for one person to do well.”
Taken aback by Hillsman’s outburst at the end of Monday’s Aviation Commission meeting, Gillespie said, “I’ve worked with David for 11 years now. I have the utmost respect for him.”
Hillsman shot back, “If you had the utmost respect for him, you wouldn’t have put that crap in the newspaper.”
When Hillsman made disparaging remarks about Aehle, saying she had proved incapable of fulfilling her duties as airport director, Gillespie said, “Do you want to go outside? You seem confrontational. Do you want to go outside?”
Hillsman replied, “You don’t want to go outside with me, Gillespie.”
The outburst came after a meeting in which board member Dr. Frank Middleton described a narrowly averted disaster when a “dead spot” in communications at the airport had two airplanes prepared to take off at opposite ends of the same runway. A traffic controller who had arrived at the airport’s tower 30 minutes earlier than his 8 a.m. shift was scheduled to start saw what was about to take place, and managed to contact the pilots of both planes and cancel their takeoff plans.
“Sometimes something like this proves to be pilot error, but recordings show that both pilots radioed traffic control,” Middleton said. “They couldn’t hear each other because of the dead communications spot at the airport.”
Mayher said the Federal Aviation Administration had been advised of the communications issue, but had responded by saying that “the airport is not busy enough to do anything about it.”
“The solution,” the Aviation Commission chairman said, “is to keep our tower open 24 hours a day.”
Board member Bob Langstaff, who is the Albany City Commission’s representative on the Aviation Board, offered motions to, first, create a paper trail to make sure a report of the potential incident reaches proper authorities, and, second, to have Hamilton research cost of keeping the tower open 24 hours a day and present those findings to the City Commission.
Also at the meeting, Ken Holt with Holt Consulting, which has a contract with the Albany airport, presented the outline of a marketing plan to bring industry to 85.4 acres of not-in-use airport land. Holt said the plan calls for a narrow focus on types of industry to court, getting “into the game” as quickly as possible and knowing the airports with which Southwest Georgia Regional Airport is competing for industrial growth.
Jacob Redwine with Holt told the commission the Georgia Department of Transportation is expected to have more than $20 million in funding for aviation projects during the current fiscal year. Redwine said that projects funding amount was $2 million two years ago and $11 million last year.
Story and photos: http://www.albanyherald.com
Ken Holt with Holt Consulting Co. outlines an economic development marketing plan for the Southwest Georgia Regional Airport Monday evening.
Albany Aviation Commission members Drs. Bill Mayher, left, and Charles Gillespie say the city of Albany must do more to support the Southwest Georgia Regional Airport.
No comments:
Post a Comment