During the Fayetteville City Council meeting on Dec. 16, 1997, the Fayetteville Chamber's position on the marketing of Drake Field was discussed. Later, three items appeared in the Northwest Arkansas Times as a result of that discussion; a news article, an editorial and a letter to the editor from alderman Kit Williams.

Contract questioned

By RUSTY GARRETT - Times Staff Writer

The Fayetteville City Council adopted the city's 1998 budget Tuesday. But aldermen served notice they want to look again at a $100,000 allocation to the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce.

In a public comment period before a vote on the $84.7 million budget, Fayetteville resident Jeff Erf urged the council to delete the economic development line item from the document. Erf said the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, which holds the $100,000 contract for that work, has refused to adopt the council's marketing plan for Drake Field.

Erf said by its action, the chamber has indicated it will not support the top priority of the plan - maintaining Drake Field as a viable passenger airport. Until the Chamber of Commerce decides to support the marketing plan, Erf said the city should consider not renewing the contract.

He pointed out a master plan for Drake Field estimates the airport's annual economic impact on the city at just over $43 million. Without air passenger service, that revenue would all but disappear by the year 2000, according to Erf.

Alderman Randy Zurcher said he believed the issue is valid but should be considered separately.

City Administrative Services Director Ben Mayes also said he felt the chamber agreement is a contract issue rather than a budget issue. He said the contract with the chamber could be terminated with 30 days' notice.

Rudy Furr, airport marketing and development coordinator, said the plan embraced by the chamber differs from that of the city only on support of continued air traffic at Drake Field. He said the general attitude of chamber members has been that Drake Field will be replaced as a regional air carrier.

"I don't see that," he said.

Council members discussed meeting with the Fayetteville Economic Development Committee to discuss the issue.

Alderman Cyrus Young said the chamber "has to decide what it is promoting, and more importantly, who they're working for."

In other action, the council voted to delete salary increases for police and firefighters from a pay schedule and approved the remainder of the plan. Council members voted down the schedule at their Dec. 2 meeting.

Aldermen asked city staff members to recalculate the method used to arrive at salary ranges for the city's civil service employees.

Mayes said the city changed the manner of computing pay increases for police and fire employees. Don Bailey, city personnel director, said despite the changes, the proposed schedule is an accurate reflection of what fire and police personnel are paid in similar markets.

Mark Stevens, president of the Fayetteville Fire Fighters Association, argued for removing the longevity pay figures from the proposed schedule because there is no assurance firefighters would ever earn the longevity pay.

The council adopted a resolution asking Washington County to provide tax and reappraisal information so the city can determine whether it must roll back taxes to conform with the limits of Amendment 59 to the Arkansas Constitution.

Aldermen deleted a clause from the resolution that would commit the city to roll back the 1-mill property tax the city levies.

Council members also adopted a resolution authorizing an agreement with the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department to split the cost of widening to four lanes a mile of Wedington Drive west from the U.S. 71 Bypass.

AHTD officials said they would share the $2 million cost of the project with the city.

Several citizens urged the council to push for improvements further to the west to ease traffic problems. Doris Dehne suggested the city "tell the state there is no point in doing just one mile."

Aldermen discussed changes in the design of the road, but City Public Works Director Kevin Crosson said if the council wanted improvements along the road, it should purchase additional right of way. A delay of the agreement could mean "the project's not going to happen," he said.

Vice Mayor Kit Williams urged the council to act on the resolution.

"We shouldn't do too much dictating to the Highway Department," he said, adding that details of the design could be addressed later.

"I'm happy they are willing to do it," he said.

All rights reserved. Copyright 1997, Northwest Arkansas Times. This content may not be archived, retransmitted, saved in a database, or used for any commercial purpose without the express written permission of the Northwest Arkansas Times

Viewpoint

Don't fault Chamber for its insight

TODAY'S ISSUE: The Fayetteville City Council will study whether the Chamber of Commerce should keep its $100,000 contract for economic development since the Chamber has not endorsed the council's plan to maintain passenger service at Fayetteville's Drake Field.

OUR OPINION: It is time to face the reality of growth and development in Northwest Arkansas, particularly when it comes to airline passenger service into the 21st Century. Remember "The Emperor's New Clothes?" We do.

It is difficult for us to fathom that the Fayetteville City Council might actually threaten to pull the $100,000 contract for economic development from the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce all because the Chamber doesn't fully back the council's plan to fight to keep passenger service at Fayetteville's Drake Field.

Fortunately, after swinging their six-shooter around for a while Tuesday night, the council had the sense to hold off on the execution until it could at least ask the Chamber why it isn't fully behind the Drake Field program.

All we can say is that we hope Andy gets well soon and comes back to take the bullets out of Barney's gun before somebody gets hurt.

Let's talk sense here, as well as sheer inevitability. We feel fighting the new airport for passenger service is absolutely the wrong thing to do.

In our minds it would be like fighting to keep the traffic flowing over the mountain on the present U.S. 71 after four-lane version under construction between Fayetteville and Alma opens.

A study could be developed to forecast a huge economic loss to those businesses along the old 71. But in the long term, the new highway is obviously in the best interest of all citizens in Northwest Arkansas. Right now, Fayetteville and the rest of Northwest Arkansas has the equivalent of a 12 inch water main when it comes to economic development.

We have the major industries, the education facilities, the quality of life and the financial services that most areas of the country would love to have. Unfortunately, the economic flow remains only a fraction of what it could be, because smack in the middle of that big main the flow is reduced to the diameter of a garden hose in the form of Fayetteville's inadequate transportation systems.

Simply pointing to the economic impact of losing passenger service at Drake field is remarkably shortsighted in our mind.

If instead, Fayetteville would get solidly behind this new airport for Northwest Arkansas, we doubtlessly would find that the entire area would be flooded with new economic activity benefiting everyone.

As the new water main is eventually opened during the next 18 months and economic flow starts gushing into the area, Fayetteville is still in the position to benefit the most.

Because of the Chamber's foresight, programs such as the industrial park, the Genesis incubator program and others are waiting to meet newcomers and others at the door.

The only problem is that the city isn't prepared for this growth because the City Council has not yet done its job by seeing that suitable infrastructure is in place here.

Industry, the education systems, the retail community and private citizens are all suffering because the City Council is debating its next step rather than running ahead to progressively lay the necessary groundwork for the future.

If the city councilmen wants to make the argument that we should fight to keep passenger service at Drake Field because we like old Fayetteville as it was and is, then fine.

But we would ask that none of its current members argue that this is the best move for our local economy and our future.

And please don't threaten the folks at the Chamber who apparently do have a full and insightful understanding of what is best for Fayetteville's growth and its future needs.

Don't misunderstand. We, too, are fully behind Drake Field's survival and continued success. But we also believe strongly that the financial future for Drake Field lies in areas such as supporting aviation-related businesses, cargo business and private aviation needs.

Drake Field has only a small window of opportunity to make the transition into these areas in order to secure this sound future.

But, as evidenced by this latest act, instead of storing away meaningful sustenance for its future, Drake's supporters are out in front of the house barking at passing cars.

We are by no means alone in these observations. No fewer than 60 area business leaders and employers, including Tyson Foods, Wal-Mart, Southwestern Energy, Daisy Manufactuering, J.B. Hunt, Butterball and others who all combine to drive the economic engine that is Northwest Arkansas today, wrote earlier this year to the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport Authority expressing their full commitment to the new airport at Highfill.

In that letter, these businesses announced their intentions to use the new airport for all their air services needs, and said they would encourage all their vendors to do the same.

Enough said.

So just because the Chamber is not willing to condone ill-conceived decisions in the face of what is inevitable, don't blast it publicly and politically. We have seen far too much of that kind of illogical, heavy-handed behavior in every political arena during recent years.

All rights reserved. Copyright 1997, Northwest Arkansas Times. This content may not be archived, retransmitted, saved in a database, or used for any commercial purpose without the express written permission of the Northwest Arkansas Times

Alderman: Airport service will benefit Fayetteville

To the editor:

A recent editorial poked fun at the elected City Council's unanimous support of our marketing plan to retain commercial air service at our airport. While some may hope we would meekly submit to moving this $40 million annual economic engine to Benton County, Fayetteville's elected representatives, including our mayor, have supported improvements to our airport to make us increasingly competitive. We have enlarged and improved our terminal and parking lots and installed an instrument landing system.

We have also begun marketing our airport because we understand that only with continued air passenger service will our airport remain self-supporting. Private planes and industry are rarely enough to pay the full cost of an airport. If we lose all passenger services, Fayetteville taxpayers will have to subsidize our airport like our neighbors do. Thus it makes good economic sense for us to promote continued commercial air service for Fayetteville.

Could Fayetteville benefit from the promised "increased economic impact" of the Benton County airport? Not likely. Airline officials have repeatedly informed us that the same type of aircraft (primarily turboprops) will serve approximately the same number of passengers at either airport.

The primary economic impact of an airport is tied to the number of passengers it serves. Thus, the same economic impact of an airport is divided differently with Fayetteville, the big loser. Since passenger costs would have to increase to pay off the tens of millions of dollars of debt on the Benton County airport, I believe more people would decide to drive to the Tulsa Airport to save money. That would actually reduce the total economic impact, which would be then located in Benton County with Fayetteville the most distant city in the region.

The bottom line is that if Fayetteville loses commercial air service, Fayetteville loses. We lose convenience, tax revenues from air passengers and tens of millions of dollars of economic benefit annually.

Our current debt-free airport is operating at only about one-third of its capacity. Weather delays should now be reduced dramatically by our new instrument landing system. The five airlines serving Fayetteville are happy and making money here. With proper marketing and free-market competition, Fayetteville should retain enough commercial air service to keep our airport operating in the black, furnishing fast and convenient air service for our citizens and providing a multimillion dollar economic benefit for Fayetteville.

Kit Williams
Fayetteville Alderman