Dec. 11—BRIDGEPORT — Mayor Joe Ganim's administration may want to get out of the responsibility and financial headaches of running an airport, but it likes the prestige that comes with being associated with one.
Even as it negotiates a potential deal for the Connecticut Airport Authority to lease and possibly eventually purchase Igor I. Sikorsky Memorial Airport and assume its operating deficit, City Hall wants to rename the Stratford-based facility Bridgeport Sikorsky Memorial Airport.
That plan, however, faces opposition from Stratford Mayor Laura Hoydick as well as the Friends of Sikorsky Airport organization, who claim it diminishes the honor granted Igor Sikorsky, who invented the first practical helicopter and founded the namesake local aircraft manufacturing giant.
"I wouldn't call it renaming. I'd call it amending the name," Danny Roach, a Ganim aide, argued Thursday of the effort pending before Bridgeport's airport commission. "It was Bridgeport Municipal Airport for the first few decades."
Bridgeport purchased the airfield in 1937 and it was was rededicated to Sikorsky in 1972.
Roach, who has been working on trying to return long-defunct regular passenger service to Sikorsky — the site currently caters to business, charter and private flights — said that regardless of who manages/owns it in the future, "We want to make sure Bridgeport retains some sort of identification with the airport."
But the effort is facing criticism from Hoydick, in part for a similar, marketing-related reason. While some of Sikorsky's Stratford neighbors — the facility is located about three miles from downtown Bridgeport, just over the border in the Lordship section of Stratford — have historically been wary of and opposed efforts to expand activity there, town leaders like being associated with an airport.
"There's really no way you can change the geographic fact it's in Stratford, but (renaming Sikorsky) certainly does," Hoydick's chief of staff, Mike Downes, said Friday. "I think there's no way to escape that naming it (after Bridgeport) certainly also diminishes Stratford's role in the airport and its association."
But Downes and Hoydick said the main reason for her opposition is to avoid impacting the effort to honor Sikorsky, whose namesake manufacturing company is headquartered in Stratford.
Hoydick has a seat on Bridgeport's airport commission, which helps run Sikorsky, though she is outnumbered by city officials. In an emailed newsletter her office releases every Thursday, Hoydick this week complained to constituents that the commission at its Tuesday virtual meeting voted for the name change. She opposed it, but it turned out the gathering was improperly publicly advertised. That means that, under the state Freedom of Information Act, there will have to be a do-over.
"I feel this proposed name change diminished the honor given to the airport's namesake and the importance of this aviation and engineering giant to the history and industry of our region," Hoydick stated in the newsletter. "While the vote to change the name was passed, the meeting where this action was taken was determined to be improperly noticed, and therefore they must pass the name change again at a future meeting. I will continue to oppose (it)."
Downes also shared a Wednesday morning email from Airport Manager Michelle Muoio who confirmed the commission meeting "was not noticed correctly."
"I am looking into the issue with my staff and how my office will prevent this from reoccurring in the future," Muoio wrote. "Please accept my sincerest apologies for any inconvenience this has caused and the waste of your very valuable time. I will reach out soon regarding a plan to present the relevant items at a future meeting. Again, I am deeply sorry for the inconvenience."
David Faile, a pilot and head of Friends of Sikorsky Airport, usually tries to attend commission meetings, which are held the first Tuesday of each month.
"Normally I receive an email from the airport manager's office saying there's a meeting, the agenda is attached. Or I get one saying the meeting is canceled," Faile said Friday. "I did not get one for this one. I kick myself for not following up on the fact I had a possible airport commission meeting on my calendar."
The agenda, posted by Bridgeport online, did not specifically mention a re-naming, but instead "approval of mayor's office re branding initiative" as an action item.
Faile said it appeared the Ganim administration was trying to quietly and abruptly push the name change through and avoid any controversy
"This is a total surprise. Anybody I've mentioned it to has said, 'What?'" Faile said. "If they're gonna do it, do you throw it out as a surprise at an airport commission meeting?"
Faile agreed with Hoydick's position that the facility should continue to be fully named after Sikorsky given the inventor's accomplishments.
Bridgeport City Council President Aidee Nieves is also a commission member and voted Tuesday for the name switch. She noted how earlier this year there was some frustration in the city when the developer of the partially-taxpayer funded amphitheater announced Hartford Healthcare had purchased the naming rights to the building, prominently situated outside of downtown along Interstate 95.
"We're very easy to give up our naming rights (and) 'promotability'," Nieves said. "Whether we choose to lease or sell ( Sikorsky), it's important that the association remains it is the Bridgeport airport."
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