Looking backward in Carroll County

     So, now you're on the hook for repaving a runway at the local airport without any help from the Federal Aviation Agency.
      Maybe we should just put a padlock on the gate and shut the airport down. It would cost county taxpayers less than fixing the old one now.
     The feds were willing to give the county its share of revenues from airport revenues around the nation, so we could have a nice little airport here to serve the businesses that will share in the costs of running it.
     The businesses would pay virtually all of the costs of the remaining $1.8 million of an expanded runway, though fuel sales, fees, hangar rentals.
     For whatever reason, the news reports of the costs to the county never explained that. The assertions that taxpayers would pay the two and a half percent left after federal contributions and state money were allowed to go unchallenged, and untruth triumphed because of the omission of fact.
     The taxpayers would have paid less than they pay for, say, Robin Frazier and Richard Rothschild's expense accounts over the four years they use the commissioner's office as a pulpit for their extremist views.
     And businesses and local pilots were willing to pay that share. What they were apparently not willing to do was take on the relative handful of local residents who were getting more than their share of newspaper ink with shrill and distorted protests about overreaching government, safety concerns, security issues and other nonsense.
     Too controversial.
     So, now they can continue to pay fees to land and take off on a deteriorating and increasingly costly surface that is less safe than the proposed improvements.
     Yes, less safe. And more of a public nuisance, which is what many of the opponents really care about. Really, they care more about noise than the safety of the pilot and passengers of corporate jets.
     A longer runway is a safer runway. More time to take off, more time to brake when landing. More margin for error, although the safety record is really a red herring altogether.
     A longer runway would have been less of a nuisance: Reduced need for the increased noise of engine thrust at takeoff, or reverse engine braking on landing.
     None of the facts fazed the opponents. They were against the airport, and that's all anyone needed to know.  It became a war of the "little people" with "overreaching government."  Populist fodder, hard for the media to resist.
     The justification of their votes by the respective commissioners prove hollow, and too late. Two said they voted for it, but they did not support it when they ran for office; not with the honest, straightforward rationale that was needed.
     The three who voted against it cited such specious reasons as making a statement about not spending tax dollars, even if they are contributed by the federal and state government.  Robin Frazier exhibited her ineptitude in starkly clear language. Read it. Rothschild showed that he is a demagogue first, and a commissioner to the county second.
     The problem is, the money that would have been provided to make the county airport better, safer, and more attractive to businesses who fly to and from the Baltimore/Washington area has been and will continue to be collected every day -- at other airports.
     It will be distributed for better, safer, forward-looking aviation in other communities.
     We are no safer; perhaps less so.
     And unless we put a padlock on the airport gates and shut it down, we're going to pay more than we had to for maintenance and improvements.
     What leadership.