"Friends" of PFN

On May 6, “Friends" of PFN ran an ad in the News Herald attacking the Airport Authority, the FAA and the dozens of other local, state and federal agencies who have been involved in the analysis and review of the proposed relocation of our airport.

Last week, Fred Werner, a spokesperson for the organization, leveled some pretty serious charges in a poorly reported story on National Public Radio.

So who are these “Friends of PFN”? And what is their interest in preventing the airport from relocating?

Start with this: Friends of PFN is a group of local hobby pilots who use the Panama City airport as their primary recreational airport.

According to an organizational survey he completed in December 2003, when asked how relocating the airport would affect his “aviation activities,” Mr. Werner said it would be a “major inconvenience.” Mr. Werner’s survey response was submitted to the FAA as part of Friends of PFN’s official opposition to the relocation of the airport.

It should be noted that Mr. Werner lives very close to the existing airport (it is, after all, located adjacent to a residential neighborhood). I presume the “major inconvenience” he refers to would be the twenty-minute drive from his home to the new airport site.

Let me remind you about four significant benefits of relocating the airport:

First, we would have an airport that meets all federal safety and design standards.

Second, as part of relocation, the sector plan would create the West Bay Preservation Area, approximately 40,000 acres that would protect West Bay forever.

Third, the new airport will provide us a platform for attracting more competitive air service.

And fourth, the new airport will provide us with a significant economic development platform, putting us in position to grow and diversify our regional economy.

So, I suppose we have to weigh the “major inconvenience” to our local recreational pilots versus the environmental, economic and community benefits of relocating the airport.

Finally, I have two points about the ad Friends of PFN ran Sunday.

First, the ad recycled a wide range of discredited information about the project. I would respectfully recommend that the Friends of PFN closely read the many pages of detailed responses the FAA provided to the organization when it made these attacks more than three years ago. If they did so, Friends of PFN would know better than to repeat the same false statements over and over.

Second, Friends of PFN has emerged as the primary local voice for the NRDC, the New York City-based group leading the legal charge against the relocation of our airport. Interesting, isn’t it, that the NRDC is using this “pilot’s group” instead working with respected local environmentalists.

But then again, many of Bay County’s most respected environmentalists have spent years working on the West Bay Sector Plan – the very plan that allows the relocation of the airport.