LEESBURG, Fla. --
Even if you never fly out of the Leesburg International Airport in Lake County, you're about to give the airport $350,000 for security upgrades. It is all state money, but most of it will go to buy security cameras to be installed all around the airport.
A 15-seat corporate jet is usually the largest aircraft to arrive at Leesburg International Airport. Most of the 60,000 planes that take-off and land there each year are much smaller.
"Does airport management feel there's a need for these extra cameras?" WFTV reporter Berndt Petersen asked city spokesman, Robert Sargent.
"Yes. In a way, you can't be too secure," Sargent replied.
Sargent said the number of security cameras will go from the current four to one-dozen. All of the gates will be electronic.
"Transportation is more than just roads," said Steve Olson of the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT).
Olson said state grants were recently given to several Central Florida airports, regardless of size, to meet federal requirements.
"In meetings we've had with TSA, it's been communicated that if you want the airport to go up to the next level, you need better fencing, lighting, and security," Olson said.
Leesburg has chartered flights from all around the country. One jet flew in from San Francisco, and some flights go back and forth to the Caribbean. But the long-term goal is commercial air traffic.
"It was always intended that as the airport grows, as we generate more business, that the security system would grow with the airport," said Sargent.
Leesburg has around 150 takeoffs and landings per day by mostly smaller, private planes.
By comparison, Orlando International Airport has between 800 and 900 commercial flights every day.
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