"Opinion: Flying too high at Detroit Metro Airport"

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

IN OUR OPINION
Flying too high at Metro Airport
The Detroit (MI) Free Press


In this day of tight finances, especially around here, what entity, public
or private, has not put tight controls on expense spending, including travel
and "working lunches" with colleagues who happen to work on the premises?

That would be Detroit Metro Airport, where officials ran up more than
$300,000 in expenses in just under two years for restaurants, limos, drinks
and fancy hotels -- and where chief executive Lester Robinson said only
after the Free Press began asking questions about the spending that he is
drafting a "more formal review and approval process." The story, published
Tuesday, can be read at freep.com/airportexec.

Should not such a process have been in place to raise questions about Jack
Vogel, senior vice president of business development for the Wayne County
Airport Authority, his assistant and another airport official running
through about $1,000 for meals and cabs while in Paris "adjusting to the
time difference" between Detroit and their final destination, Dubai? That's
nearly $100 per hour of adjustment.

Where has the Wayne County Airport Authority been while these bills were
rolling in? The authority was created in 2002 in part to get a handle on all
the money flowing through Metro and neighboring Willow Run Airport. Some
watchdogs for the public its members have been. These kinds of shenanigans
are the last thing airport officials need as they eye public support for
necessary Metro expansions. Does this make anyone feel good about the idea
of more revenue bonds, or higher "passenger facility charges" on airline
tickets to finance airport improvements?

Even if you could justify this kind of high-rolling, which you can't, it's
the wrong thing to be doing in Michigan, where the economy is now as bad as
the weather and people all over the state are thankful just to be working,
where a couple is lucky to have enough scratch for a decent anniversary
dinner, but where airport officials saw nothing wrong with $400 hotel rooms
or thousand-dollar dinners for their own staff on Mackinac Island, all with
money from Metro travelers.

The truth is that at a time when everything is supposed to be changing so
Detroit and Michigan can break from their past and move into a brighter
economic future, this kind of stuff still goes on way too often. There are
still too many public officials who see their place at the table of
authority as a trough rather than a privilege. Too often there are no rules,
other than grab it while you can, and no accountability, other than to
themselves.

If airport chief Robinson can't do better, can't devise a structure that
respects the money and responsibility that come with leading one of this
region's most important economic drivers, the airport authority board ought
to find someone who can.


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