The long story about our town’s 20-year-old golf course published in last week’s CVN included my comments but omitted the very public matter that I was “talking loudly about” with a CVN reporter at Deerheart on the evening of May 26. (The reporter, who was not Will Steinfeld, was seated about four seats away from me.)
The matter I raised – which still has not been reported by the CVN – was why and how the FAA approved a private, golf course landing strip nearly adjacent to the Haines airport and in the apparent flight path of our town’s commercial air traffic.
Such an arrangement would seem to needlessly create an air traffic hazard both to the flying public and to amateur pilots landing at the golf course.
When Will Steinfeld interviewed me for his golf course story, I emphatically told him the greater public interest wasn’t that our town had a golf course – the course has generated dozens of news stories since its inception – but that there are now two airstrips operating in close proximity to each other.
At Deerheart on the evening of May 26, Clayton Jones approached me after overhearing my conversation about those concerns, assuring me the FAA had no problem with his new airstrip. Remarkably, when I asked Jones what would happen if his plane were landing at the golf course while golfers were golfing, he told me that any golfers playing Hole 6 would have to get out of the way.
The story is public safety.
Mayor Tom Morphet