Someone tampered with the Airport Poll

It’s funny how the opposition is, and how unethical they can be. Last week I started a poll to see what the public thought about the airport relocation and had an overwhelming positive response (96% for, 3% against, 1% didn’t care). Then, today when I logged on, amazingly the opposition was up to almost 50%.

The funny thing is is that the opposition must not realize that my blog logs your ip address when you visit the site, furthermore, so does the poll, so it isn’t too difficult to figure out what happened. I just think it is funny that someone was childish enough to click NO 163 times.

I think this strongly speaks to the character of those opposing the airport and truly justifies this statement directed to those opposing the airport relocation:

You are a bunch of clowns.

Don’t mess with my polls, I’m not stupid and neither are the readers of pcbdaily.

Do you support the Airport Relocation?

Tell us if you support the Airport Relocation by voting in the poll on the top right of the site. I support the relocation as do most pcbdaily readers, but if you don’t, I still welcome your opinion, please vote. AND, please comment on why you disagree with the relocation.

In addition, feel free to comment on your opinion here or on the other post for the airport that was posted last week.

Support the Panama City Airport Relocation – Write your State Representatives

Last week at the Panama City Beach Chamber’s Friday at the Beach local attorney William Harrison asked that everyone get more involved in voicing support for the airport relocation. Currently the USAC-issued 404 Permit has been temporarily suspended and full speed-construction halted pending a January 23rd court date that I assume will begin an arduous process of who is right and wrong.

Following the event, an email was sent out to the Chamber members with contact information for our Congressman and Senator and other local and state representatives asking us to write them in support of the relocation. I have sent them an email voicing my support and encourage everyone to do the same. And, just for the fun of it, I’ve started a new poll on the top right of the page titled “Do you support the airport relocation”. Please vote!

Senator Mel Martinez

Senator Bill Nelson

Congressman Allen Boyd

Governor Charlie Crist

Representative Jimmy Patronis

I have sent them all an email and hope that you will too.

Information on Airport Relocation Opposition

The main argument in the Panama City Bay County Airport relocation is the possibility of causing irreparable damage to sensitive environmental areas. Currently construction is being held up by a law suit against the FAA regarding their Record of Decision approving the construction of the new airport that was issued in September 2006.

Quote from the Record of Decision:

“In conducting its funding analysis, FAA determined that both physical and environmental restrictions at the existing site make it impractical and extremely costly to update to meet FAA standards.

The existing primary air carrier runway is 6,304 feet long with nonstandard safety areas. Even if FAA were to upgrade the existing site, it would not result in an airfield that fully complied with FAA standards.”

In a press release on November 14th, 2006, Melanie Shepherdson, attorney at the NRDC, is quoted, “The FAA’s decision to build this ‘airport to nowhere’ is illegal. . . The law is clear: The agency has to pick the alternative that is least damaging to the environment. And it failed to do that.”

What alternative is least damaging? Modifying the current site to bring it into compliance with current FAA safety regulations? The environmentalist groups protested that option years ago; this is one of the main reasons the Airport Authority began looking for a new site in the first place. It was determined early on that the damage extending the current runway would cause was far too great to risk.

Another argument the opposition loves is that the airport will spur growth and development in the West Bay area (duh, and that’s a bad thing?), but that it will destroy the natural home for various wildlife, including Florida Black Bears, sea turtles, dolphins, and more. BUT, they fail to acknowledge that most of the shoreline in West Bay will be conservation as part of a 9,000 acre donation dedicated for conservation/mitigation, AND they fail to acknowledge participation of Audubon of Florida, The Florida Wildlife Federation, 1000 Friends of Florida and The Nature Conservancy in the organization of the West Bay Sector Plan. These are all environmentalist groups concerned about the environmental well being of the West Bay Area.

For more arguments and explanations, visit Dr. Ed Wright’s WestBayFlorida Blog. If you scroll down and look for the “Labels”. He has enough information on the relocation to keep you busy reading for weeks.

Thanks, Ed, for all your hard work.

Update on Airport Construction Progress

I’ve been getting a lot of emails asking what is going on with the airport relocation. Here is what’s going on:

11/29/2007 – Federal judge in New York issued an order to temporarily block construction. The NRDC has also threatened a separate suit against the Army Corps of Engineers’ issuance of the 404 permit.
Court date of December 18th was set to determine how “permanent” the stay would be.
12/4/2007 – Airport Board approved funding for around $100 million.
12/10/2007 – December 18th hearing post-poned to January 8th because one of the three judges recused himself
Costs associated with the block of construction are estimated to be in excess of $1 million per month.
12/17/2007 – Three judge panel mandated that the airport authority could authorize “preliminary construction work” that includes preparing the site for construction, surveying the property, identifying wetlands, erecting fencing, perform maintenance of existing roadways and placing of construction trailers. Work to begin January 2nd.
Court hearing set for January 23rd.

That is all I have for now. Randy, or anyone else on the airport authority board, feel free to email me with more information if you like.

Airport Relocation Non-Binding Referendum Vote Stats

I was looking for some specifics on the non-binding referendum vote on the airport relocation, and I found it. The vote was placed on the ballot for the Democratic Presidential Primary on March 9th, 2004.

Randy Curtis, the Executive Director of the Panama City – Bay County Airport and Industrial District was gracious enough to provide the details:

The question on the ballot was as follows:

TITLE: Non-binding referendum question on the Bay County citizenry’s desire to relocate the existing Airport. Do you favor future relocation of the Panama City Bay   County International Airport at no cost to the Bay County taxpayer?

The statement that I hear quoted most often regarding this vote is that “an overwhelming majority of Bay County voters voted against airport relocation”. The results of the vote taking into consideration the total number of registered voters in Bay County was as follows:

Yes                                       9,500                    10.556%
No                                        11,051                   12.280%
Over Vote                                   2                      0.002 %
Under Vote                              79                       0.088%
Did not vote                       69,360                   77.074%
Total registered voters    89,992                100.000%

It is obvious that the majority of registered voters decided for whatever reason not to vote. I have several concerns regarding this vote. First, the FAA had not completed nor released the results of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The EIS was an in-depth analysis of the airport relocation project that was conducted independently by the FAA. In the EIS, numerous alternatives including expansion of the existing airport site, joint use with Tyndall AFB, relocation to various sites in and around Bay County, and a “do nothing” alternative, were evaluated in great detail. One could question whether or not the voters had adequate information to make an informed decision since the EIS and other critical studies had not been completed when the election was held.

Another comment regarding the vote is that it was not fully representative of those that use and pay for the Airport. Two-thirds of the passengers that use the current Airport are not Bay County citizens. They are either visitors that are traveling to this area or citizens of counties outside of Bay County. This fact is also the basis for my comment that the majority of those that pay for the airport were not represented. The Airport District does not receive any monies directly or indirectly from local taxes to pay for the operation and development of the airport. The funds that do pay for the airport come from aviation user fees collected by the state and federal governments and revenues generated directly by the Airport Authority. The federal and state governments collect various user fees from passenger ticket sales, aviation fuel taxes, car rental surcharges, and other aviation services. These monies are placed in trust funds and are distributed to airports in the form of grants to be used primarily for aviation infrastructure development. The Airport Authority receives revenue from airport tenants such as airlines, fixed base operators, rental car agencies, parking, concessions (gift shop, restaurant, lounge, advertising, etc.),and other businesses that operate at the airport. The basic premises is that these companies pay for the right to conduct business at the airport and we in turn provide the aviation facilities that allow them to operate.

One might argue that the airport is indirectly subsidized by local tax payers that provide municipal services. However, in this regard the airport authority has its own police and fire departments funded directly by the authority. We pay for utilities (water, sewer, trash, natural gas, electricity) the same as any other business. The bottom line is that the airport is funded by the users of the airport who pay the user fees to the state and federal government and use the services of the businesses that operate at the airport. The majority of those that use and pay for the airport did not have an opportunity to vote since they are not Bay County citizens.

In regard to public input as to whether or not the airport should be relocated, the Airport Board took into consideration many factors. Certainly the non-binding referendum was taken into consideration; however it must be placed in proper context as noted above. The Board also took into consideration public input that was provided at more than 125 public hearings, workshops, and other public meeting that were held over the past 10 years. The Board took into consideration dozens of resolutions and letters of support for the project received from area municipalities, elected officials, chambers, tourist development councils, economic development organizations and other groups. Numerous permitting and regulatory agencies (FAA, US Army Corps of Engineers, FDOT, FDEP, Florida Department of Community Affairs, Bay County and many others) conducted in-depth analysis of the project. Likewise, their input was an important consideration as the Board decided whether or not to move forward with this project.

Thank you Randy, I know this answered some questions that I had. I hope that it will help educate the public as well.

Airport Relocation on the Radio

Burnie Thompson, a local radio talk show host discussed the airport relocation on Thursday’s show. I received an email from him on Thursday evening that he would be discussing this topic with various parties involved in the relocation the first part of next week. He is on Talk Radio 101.1 FM.

I heard little opposition on the show on Thursday from callers, and the opposition I did hear, the arguments were weak at best.

One of the callers mentioned that if we took all the people that drove from Panama City to Tallahassee, Ft. Walton, Pensacola, Dothan, and Montgomery to fly and flew them our of PFN, the existing facility would not be able to handle it. Another caller mentioned that the non-binding referendum that the opposition touts as overwhelming proof that the public does NOT want the airport to be relocated was held during a Democratic Primary and that overwhelming number was really only 60%. Can anyone confirm this?

So, anyways. Burnie keeps all his shows for the past week available on his website and you can hear them by clicking here.

5 Year Home Price Projections – Positive or Negative?

This month in Fortune Magazine there was a great article speaking into the current condition of the real estate market, what happened to start the boom, what happened as the boom became less boomy, and how it is affecting people now.

In a previous post I talked about how in the beginning when money was easy to get and real estate was cheap, there was way more demand for the supply; this started the boom (or more, frenzy). As people saw their friends and neighbors selling property for more and quicker AND after bidding wars, the frenzy grew. “Buy now, buy everything, double the price and sell tomorrow!” Well, everyone I knew in the “biz” agreed that that couldn’t last forever, but had no idea when it would settle down. Just when you thought an unbeatable record was set, it was broken as well.

Fast foward to today. Taxes and insurance is up, interest rates are up from a couple of years ago and the subprime mortgage market has just recently gone through a meltdown. Real estate is not as easy to purchase as it once was, so the demand is down. Develpers couldn’t slow their building train down quick enough so new home inventories are way up. Property owners have mortgages payments they can’t afford because they bought a little too much home with low teaser rates and high hopes that the future appreciation would bring profits to make the risk worth taking.

Fortune Magazine’s Shawn Tully couldn’t have picked a better time for this story. He discusses that through calaboration with Moody’s Economy.com they were able to project the 5 year outcome of our current real estate market conditions based on history of average annual rent increases, annual property value increases and their correlation with each other.

He explains that there has always been a direct correlation between property values and the average rental rate for similar properties. This makes sense, right? Why would you purchase a home when it costs substantially less to rent? The prospect of future appreciation is not reasonable right now. Sure it is nice to own your own home. If you want to move a tree in the front yard, or if you want to update the inside, you don’t have to ask permission. But is it ‘pay twice as much a month’ worth it?

According to their findings, they estimate an average fall in prices nationwide over the next 5 years to be around 28%. Of course, not all markets will see a decrease. Areas like Dallas and Houston (1.3%), Detroit (6.9%), Indianapolis (7.3%) and Cleveland (9.6%) never really got a taste of the boom, nor experienced radical price valuation increases and thus have positive projections. However, cities such as Orlando (-34.2%), Miami (-32.2%), Sacramento (-26.1%), and Las Vegas (-26.3%) experienced such rapid value growth that the 5 year adjustment is negative.

Projections are based on a 15 year history of the property value/rent correlation. For us to get back to reality with regards to the real estate market on a national scale, the gap between property values and market rent rates needs to close.

The entire article: click here.

As you’ve heard me say in the past, real estate is very local and regional in nature. In Panama City Beach, I’ve always thought we were a little ahead of the national market with regards to market conditions. I feel that prices were shooting up here before many of the larger markets, and the correction began sooner here then it did in many of the local markets. Don’t get me wrong, I still think we are going through a correction period, but we’ve come a long way. Not to mention all the future economic development that is slated for our area over the next five years. The Airport relocation can do mounds for our area in putting us on the map and seeding growth and opportunity. It will open this market up to many who just couldn’t rationalize spending the money and going through the effort it takes to get here.

The airport will be great and our area will be awesome in 5 years. The CRA will be done, Pier Park will be very well established and we should have planes coming in from all over the country and hopefully a few big corporations’ headquarters here.

Will Disney and Universal be coming here afterall?

This past week I was sent a document presentation of our area and the future planned growth that we will see in the coming years. It was put together by Accrue Planning. I couldn’t find anything about them on the web, but I decided to post it anyway. There is some good information, but there is also other information that I’m not sure how accurate it is. When I say I couldn’t find any information on the web, I should have been more specific in that I couldn’t find a website.

The document cites that there are no inventory, franchise, or state-level property taxes in our area and that our area remains to be attractive for businesses. Discussed in the 78,000 acre, master-planned West Bay Sector Plan by St. Joe and the new airport. Also discussed is the possibility of FedEx and UPS relocating their international operations centers here. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that has been confirmed.

The Gulf Coast Parkway will stretch from 231 to 98, just west of Mexico Beach and will improve hurricane evacuation, open up more development opportunities and reduce traffic through Tyndall Air Force Base. The Gulf Coast Parkway is also expected to open up travel corridors from the East Bay area to the new Airport.

Currently, Highway 79 is undergoing a transformation to a four-lane highway up to I-10 and there are plans to widen highway 77 up to I-10 as well. Actually, this could have already happened or begun already. My travels do not take me up that road.

Also in the document in information about Disney and Universal Studios coming to our area. I know nothing of the validity of this information, but they are claiming that 55,000 acres known as “Moody Pastures” is under contract and that Disney has spent money on the site. Also discussed is the possibility of Universal coming to the East Bay area.

Once gain, I feel it necessary to note that I was unable to find information on the publisher of this document and I do not endorse the validity of the information it contains.

Here is the link to the document: Northwest Florida Future Development

Halt on Panama City Airport Construction

A Federal Judge in New York issued an order on Thursday to temporarily block construction of the new Panama City Airport until a formal hearing can be held on December 18th. The Friends of PFN, the Defenders of Wildlife, and the Natural Resources Defense Council sued the FAA last year to turn over the Record of Decision the FAA issued for the construction of the new airport in West Bay.

It is expected on December 18th that they will quickly rule on whether a permanent stay will be enacted. The News Herald was kind enough to host the motion for stay document, it can be found here.

Other information on the airport relocation can be found here.

I want to encourage discussion. When I first started pcbdaily.com more than a year ago, the airport relocation was all over the news. I had tons of people opposing the relocation post comments, and I don’t remember one valid point.

One example was the opposing argument that we don’t need a new airport, the one we have is at half capacity, so much so that new airlines won’t even come. Our airport is at half capacity, that is a fact. BUT, you have to realize, most people don’t fly out of here. I don’t know one person (and I know many that travel) that flies out of here voluntarily except on the rare occasion it is cheaper to fly out of here than drive to Ft. Walton or Tallahassee. Almost at any given time, it is double to fly out of PFN than it is from VPS. Am I going to drive 90 minutes to save 200 bucks? You bet I am, and so is everyone else. And, new airlines won’t even think about coming here because the runway does not currently meet FAA standards for a safe landable runway.

Opposition: what about the 4,000 acres of land that is going to be cleared, paved, built upon, developed, etc.? You mean the St. Joe-owned land that had been used to FARM pine trees for the production of paper and was harvested every 10 to 20 years for decades. The land that eventually could be homes, office buildings, etc.? What about the 14,000 acres donated specifically for conservation including almost all of the waterfront shoreline of the West Bay area (I don’t need to say, the most valuable). What about the waters in the bay system and the estuary that would be damaged if the current runway was extended out into the bay to make the current runway up-to-standards? After all, the environmentalists had a problem with this too years ago. What are we supposed to do? We can’t bring the existing airport up to code and can’t build a new one?

Tell me, opposition, what do you suggest?