Gainesville Sun - January 26, 2001

Gainesville and Alachua County commissioners have the opportunity today to undertake a much needed overhaul of the community's dysfunctional airport authority. Indeed, state Sen. Rod Smith, D-Alachua, has all but invited local commissioners to quickly bring to the legislative delegation a plan to restructure the authority so it can be adopted during the upcoming session.

City and county commissioners will hold one of their rare get-togethers today, and the question of how to reconstruct the authority is prominent on the agenda. Last month, a task force unanimously recommended that the existing Gainesville-Alachua County Regional Airport Authority be dismantled and that a more effectively structured governing board be created. That's one of the best ideas we've heard in a long time.

The current authority - which is made up of members appointed by the city, county and governor - has a history of divisiveness and infighting. While the airport has steadily lost business over the years, the authority has been fixated on relatively minor management issues and consumed by petty personal grievances.

That's got to stop. Gainesville's economic future depends to large degree on its ability to maintain the viability of the airport. Those who make policy for the airport and oversee its management must be more concerned with big picture issues, like attracting new carriers, and less focused on political sniping.

Indeed, the importance of the airport is such that it does not seem inappropriate for elected commissioners to themselves take turns sitting on a reconstituted board. One of the options presented by the task force is to model the airport authority after the governing board of the library district, which is composed of representatives from both the city and county commissions. That sort of shared governance would strengthen public accountability for what happens at the airport.

Commissioners should take advantage of this narrow "window of opportunity" to rid the community of its embarrassment of an authority and assume more direct responsibility for governing the airport.

See January 26, 2001, issue of Gainesville Sun for original article.