Posted on Sun, Jul. 29, 2007

thesunnews.
EDITORIAL
Pouters Prevail

Panama Beach: Send MB airport money to us

The $43 million Federal Aviation Administration grant intended for the west-side terminal at Myrtle Beach International Airport might not go to waste after all, says FAA Southern regional administrator Doug Murphy. That could be good news - for folks in the Florida panhandle.

The city of Myrtle Beach squelched the terminal project this spring, prompting airport owner Horry County to kill it last month. So the FAA, having a nice pot of money unexpectedly available, might divert some of it to Panama City, Fla.

We asked Murphy, who met with The Sun News editorial board last week, what the critical difference is between Panama City and Myrtle Beach. Answer: Leaders there are unified behind expanding their airport. Leaders here are not.

No kidding! Murphy's visit came a few days after County Council Chairwoman Liz Gilland announced that she would no longer lead - or attempt to lead - the ad hoc committee sorting through the wreckage of the terminal project to figure out our communities' next air-service move. City of Myrtle Beach leaders subsequently voiced their lack of interest in the committee's work. That left businessmen Dick Rosen in charge of a committee whose work can't possibly succeed without the enthusiastic cooperation of the city and the county.

While City Council members were at it, they also complained that the county had failed to follow through on its obligations under the 2004 city-county deal that allowed construction (or so we thought) of the west-side terminal. The county, they said, had better get moving on the agreed-to extension of Harrelson Boulevard between the airport and U.S. 17 and - get this - and on airport terminal expansion.

Not that City Council had no provocation to cross the line between cheek and gall. As exemplified by Gilland's withdrawal from the air-service discussion, county leaders have been in a passive-aggressive tiff since the terminal project's formal demise in early June. No doubt they regard this as acceptable payback for City Council's passive-aggressive refusal to rein in the appointive panel that squelched the terminal project, the Community Appearance Board.

What we have here, in short, is a bunch of elective pouters more interested in "getting" each other than improving public infrastructure to increase our communities' wealth. Unwilling (or unable) to suppress their worst instincts to focus on the common good, these two local governments squabble on and on - and on. Having collectively messed up a great opportunity to render the airport a first-class facility (for a reasonable price), they now seem bent on turning the what-next air-service effort into a bucket of ashes.

Their eternal gotcha game would be laughable if its consequences for our communities were not so serious. We have an outdated terminal on which expansion or replacement work won't begin for at least five years, according to the FAA. And local leaders can't get the county to lower per-passenger fees on airlines - the key to attracting new air service.

If these local governments can agree - really agree - on an airport expansion plan, Murphy says, the FAA will enthusiastically help them make it happen. But until such consensus happens, the agency will practice what amounts to benign neglect of Myrtle Beach International Airport. Meanwhile, Panama City leaders want what was supposed to be our money. Question: What's the FAA's motivation not to give it to them?