An Attack From Within

I am sorry that it has come to this. But now, one of our fellow citizens has taken to attacking Bay County in other parts of the state.

Fred Werner, spokesperson for Friends of PFN, a group of local recreational pilots who use the existing airport and find the new airport site personally “inconvenient,” is now trying to build support in Orlando (and probably other parts of the state) to kill the relocation of our airport and the creation of the 41,000-acre West Bay Preservation Area.

Here’s the false attack he sent to the Orlando paper.

Werner actually called the new airport site – located between Panama City and Panama City Beach “the middle of nowhere.” Though the airport will be built in the middle of what is now an industrial pine forest, it is in fact well-located to accommodate the fastest growing portion of our county. Werner’s description – first popularized by the NRDC – will only fuel the negative perceptions the rest of the state has about the Panhandle.

If Mr. Werner merely signed his name to something the NRDC wrote, then shame on him. If he wrote the piece himself, then he should be ashamed for repeating several absolute falsehoods.

Here’s one example. Werner actually said that our new airport would be bigger than Tampa’s. That’s ridiculous – and I would hope Werner knows better.

We’re building a 100,000 square foot terminal with seven gates. Tampa’s airside terminals have more than one million square feet and 59 active gates.

Mr. Werner has tried to build support for his point of view here, but he doesn’t seem to have had much luck. He led a sparsely attended anti-airport rally last week. It was the same small group of people saying the same things to themselves that they have been saying for years, with few people listening and no responsible agency agreeing.

I’m sure he’ll find more support in Orlando and other parts of the state. These other communities would love to get their hands on the money that has been budgeted for our airport.

Think for a moment how sad it is that Werner would do this to his community – to try to turn the rest of the state against us. Can’t he keep this debate “in the family,” so to speak? Why go outside our community to try to rally other communities against us?

Why try to send transportation dollars designated for our community to central or south Florida?

In the many years this community has debated the airport, it seems to me that it’s the first time one of our own citizens has done something like this.

I don’t think Werner’s a bad fellow. But I wonder if he has gotten too cozy with the New York-based NRDC. If I had to guess, I’d say they are the ones who talked him into attacking his own community.

It’s really quite sad.