CAA: GA News, "Ocean City mulling over options for airport development"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@cwnet.com>]

Friday, May 26, 2000

Ocean City mulling over options for airport development
GA News


OCEAN CITY, Maryland — What to do about Ocean City Municipal Airport (OXB)?
The Ocean City Council delayed a vote on four plans for the airport’s future
at the end of April, deciding at the last minute to take another course of
action.

“The council decided to put a committee together to look at the options and
report back to council,” said Airport Manager Kurt Klima.

The options:

- Lengthen Runway 2-20.

- Lengthen Runway 14-32.

- Build a new primary runway.

- Do nothing.

The airport’s consultant recommends lengthening Runway 14-32. That would
require land acquisition and road removal, but it poses the least
environmental impact of the two other options, and is therefore the least
costly.

Airport officials want to extend the runway from its present 4,072 feet to
4,670 feet. The improvements are needed, supporters say, to attract enough
aircraft and operations to make the airport pay for itself.

“The state is onboard with us, and the FAA is onboard with any of the
developments,” Klima said. “What they don’t want to see is the
no-development plan.

“The economic development committees have all favored airport development,”
Klima said. “However, we have communities located south and north of the
airport that are apprehensive due to noise. It’s the typical issues that
airports encounter. I hate to say it, but it’s ignorance of aviation. We’re
trying to work with the community as a good neighbor, but as in all
airports, the first thing people think (with expansions) is that the 747s
are coming in.”

Klima himself can identify with the “ignorance of aviation.”

“I’ve been here two years,” he said. “I came from the Department of Public
Works. In all honesty, I have minimal background in aviation, but I just
finished two years of an aviation science program, and I have been educating
myself through AAAE and specialists schools, the Wings program and
 seminars.”

Klima, who is now a member of the Maryland Airport Managers Association,
said he’s always had an interest in aviation.

“I grew up two miles from BWI (Baltimore Washington International). I biked
to the airport and watched airplanes from the observation deck. We lived
under the approach path, and the old jets used to rattle our windows, so I
know what the communities feel like and what the struggles are. But
personally, we became accustomed to it, and saw the airport as a way to
achieve jobs and growth, and we saw it as a good thing.”

As for his own future in aviation, “I don’t have a burning desire to become
a pilot,” Klima said. “However, I do fly quite frequently with local pilots.
I enjoy it as activity. It’s like the old saying, Why buy a boat when your
friend has one?”

Members of the committee that will help shape the airport’s future have yet
to be selected. Those appointed will represent various constituencies and
organizations. Their report is due to the city council in November.

“They’d like to see us self sufficient,” Klima said of the city council,
“but they’re afraid to make the infrastructure developments that would help
move us in that direction.”


   Post your opinion on this story in the CAA General Aviation Forum
http://www.californiaaviation.org/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi?conf=DCConfID2

*****************************************
California Aviation Alliance: General Aviation Airport List E-mail Commands
To subscribe to the GA News List, send an email, from the email account you wish to receive your posts on, addressed to listserv@californiaaviation.org and place the following in the first line of the body of the message:
 Subscribe ganews YourFirstName YourLastName YourJobTitle YourAirport/Company 

To unsubscribe from the GA News List, send an email, from the email account you have been receiving your posts on, addressed to listserv@californiaaviation.org and place the following in the first line of the body of the message:
 Unsubscribe ganews YourFirstName YourLastName