County plan for Friedman airport transition raises Hailey's hackles

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Sep. 17--HAILEY -- The Hailey City Council took up two issues related to airport relocation on Monday night, and came out with firm positions on both.

Members emphasized -- again -- that there will be no airport in Hailey once the replacement for Friedman Memorial Airport is built, and they reiterated that Hailey is unwilling to give up any decision-making control until Friedman closes.

Hailey and Blaine County are joint sponsors of Friedman, meaning they are responsible for grant assurances and other legalities.

The county will be solely responsible for the replacement airport. The county has said it would like a transition committee to begin learning from the existing Friedman Mem-orial Airport Authority and eventually take over decisions about the new airport.

The committee would be nominated by cities and appointed by the commissioners, who have said they want the nominees to be explicitly committed to a viable new airport. That has been a concern to both the commissioners and Hailey, as there has been opposition to moving the airport, especially from residents of the north county.

"My concern has been, and always will be, who's on that committee," said Councilwoman Martha Burke, who is also one of Hailey's representatives on the FMAA.

The council worried that the new committee might usurp some elements of the joint sponsorship between Hailey and Blaine County. They also worried that the Federal Aviation Admini-stration might not release the city from its grant obligations even after the new airport is in place.

"I honestly feel we're the ugly stepchild of this joint powers agreement. We're being dictated to, and that bothers me," said Councilman Fritz Haem-merle. "Right or wrong we're going to be a sponsor on this airport unless someone releases us."

The council pondered a resolution promising not to sign any additional grant assurances for airport improvements or maintenance, but took no action. Mayor Rick Davis said he might be interested in such a resolution as long as it did not negatively impact safety or health issues.

Instead, the council requested that the county modify its transition committee proposal to give Hailey the right to reject any committee member they see as being obstructive to the process of relocating the airport. They also said the committee should serve only in an advisory authority to the FMAA, rather than doing any decision-making on the airport. The council's representatives are set to take these requests back to the commission soon.