"Rhode Island panel to consider how much leash to give airport corporation"

Thursday, December 9, 2004

Watchdog panel to consider how much leash to give airport corporation
BY TONY DE PAUL
The Providence (RI) Journal


WARWICK -- A special House commission met for the first time yesterday to
consider whether the state Airport Corporation has too much power to spend
millions of dollars, decide issues affecting public health and safety and
the environment and override local zoning laws.

Rep. Joseph McNamara, the Warwick Democrat who proposed the commission last
summer and was elected its chairman yesterday, said the panel would examine
whether the corporation should be made "more accountable" to the General
Assembly and to local governments with state airports in their
jurisdictions.

Founded in 1992, the state agency has broad powers to operate independently
and to style itself as a private company, run not by a department head but a
chief executive officer and president.

Its board of directors answers to the governor.

McNamara pledged that the study, expected to take six months, will focus not
just on Warwick and its local concerns about noise and pollution from T.F.
Green Airport, but on North Kingstown, Westerly, Block Island, Middletown,
Lincoln and Smithfield. (North-Central State Airport straddles the
Lincoln-Smithfield town line.)

Besides McNamara, the representatives seated on the panel are Arthur Handy,
D-Cranston, vice chairman; William McManus, R-Lincoln; Kenneth Carter,
D-North Kingstown; Peter Lewiss, D-Westerly; Matthew J. McHugh, D-South
Kingstown, and Roger Picard, D-Woonsocket.

Whether people think the commission is a good idea may depend on whether
they want T.F. Green to build a longer main runway and a bigger terminal,
and whether they think the Airport Corporation should have power to build
more transportation assets in a community that objects.

Because McNamara has been active for years in the fight against airport
expansion in Warwick, some who favor growth may see the commission as his
way of opening another front in the fight against T.F. Green.

James Hagan, president of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, said
yesterday, "We continue to support the construction of a 9,500-foot runway
because it's critical to job creation in Rhode Island. We try to work
cooperatively with any legislative committee that is trying to do the
people's work, but at the same time we hope it's not just a special deal by
one individual who's opposed to something."

McNamara said yesterday, "This is not targeted at stopping a longer runway
at Green. We are looking at global issues relating to airports in our
communities. We're looking at public safety, health and environmental
issues, and we will bring in out-of-state experts because this is a regional
problem, and we're very well aware of that."

Under the Airport Corporation's current structure, Warwick Mayor Scott
Avedisian, an opponent of airport growth, appoints one of seven policy
makers on the agency's board. Governor Carcieri, who favors expansion,
appoints the remaining six.

Avedisian said he welcomed a General Assembly reconsideration of that
structure, from a statewide point of view.

"A lot of times people think we're the only entity that has to worry about
[the corporation's powers], and it's not true," Avedisian said. Neighbors of
all six state airports "need a better definition of the relationship between
the Airport Corporation and the zoning codes and planning codes of host
communities. That's always been a gray area."

Last summer, the corporation resisted McNamara's bill to create the
commission. Its lawyer, Richard Licht, said the corporation's powers are
suited to its mission, which is to operate Rhode Island's air transportation
system from "a regional perspective."

McNamara, he said, was attempting to bring "a much narrower, local
perspective" to an inquiry into the agency's structure. Any such inquiry, he
said, should focus more properly on all state agencies that are organized to
operate as if they were private.

McNamara said yesterday, "We realize that, today, with separation of powers,
every quasi-public agency in the state of Rhode Island will be looked at and
examined," but the Airport Corporation, he said, is powerful enough to merit
a separate look.

"The fact of the matter is, we have individuals who are not elected who are
making decisions relating to public safety, health, and millions and
millions of dollars," McNamara said. "Our constitutional duty is to oversee
those decisions and look at how they are being made."

"What we have seen in dealing with the Airport Corporation is that they will
at times use their statutory authority to refer to themselves as a private
corporation, when that particular role meets their needs, and at times
they'll refer to themselves as a public corporation, so I think the public
deserves some answers," he said.

Patti Goldstein, the Airport Corporation's vice president for public
affairs, said Tuesday, "We want to work with this commission and try to
discern what their needs are and what direction they're going in. We'll
provide information that's needed to educate them on what the Airport
Corporation is doing, not only at Green but at the general aviation
airports."

In 2002, when a master plan study for Green recommended further expansion, a
dozen Warwick residents who had volunteered to work on the study denounced
the outcome. They complained that the planning process was biased in favor
of growth and that the Airport Corporation had neutralized their
participation at every turn.

One of those residents, Jerry Flynn, called the McNamara commission "a great
idea."

"If the Airport Corporation says it's going to meet the residents halfway,
this is yet another test and an opportunity for them to do that," Flynn said
yesterday. "It will be good to have a third party look at what's in place
today on these key issues, on finances, the environment, and see if any
changes are necessary."

The commission is scheduled to meet at the State House on Tuesday, Jan. 11,
at the rise of the House.


 Do you have an opinion about this story?
Share it with other readers in our CAA Discussion Forums

http://www.californiaaviation.org/dcfp/dcboard.php


*****************************************