Aug. 19--HYANNIS -- Eager to project unqualified support for a proposed new passenger terminal at Barnstable Municipal Airport, the town council yesterday quashed one councilor's attempt to expand Yarmouth's influence over the airport.
Hyannis Councilor Greg Milne has tried since May to win a vote for Yarmouth on the airport commission, pitching it as a gesture of neighborly goodwill and a matter of fairness. Yarmouth borders the airport.
But having refused to consider the idea last May, the council overwhelmingly rejected it last night, 10-2. Councilors cited concern that a Yarmouth representative might hurt Barnstable's effort to win state and federal funding for the proposed $30 million-plus terminal. Two other airports, including Nantucket's, are competing for the same money.
Over the years, Yarmouth residents and officials have expressed frustration about noise from airport traffic. In June, Yarmouth's Board of Selectmen voted to seek state funds to study moving the airport to Otis Air National Guard Base, should the federal government decide next month to close it. Yarmouth also asked Barnstable to halt planning of the new terminal until Otis' fate is settled.
"Are these the type of people you invite to the table at this time?" asked Osterville Councilor James Crocker, the council's most stalwart defender of the Barnstable's airport interests.
Crocker and airport commissioners, including former Chairman Michael Dunning, asserted that a change in airport management now could give the state and federal agencies that fund airport projects an excuse to send money elsewhere. The agencies, Dunning said, are "looking for reasons to say no."
Councilor Janet Joakim, the only councilor to vote with Milne, questioned the claim.
"I don't think extending a hand to Yarmouth would have affected our getting any money," she said afterward. "I'm still not convinced of that."
No one represented the Federal Aviation Administration or the Massachusetts Aeronautics Commission at the meeting.
Yarmouth Selectman Suzanne McAuliffe, who attended the meeting with fellow Selectman Bud Groskopf, said a voting Yarmouth airport commissioner would not play an obstructionist role.
"You would not appoint someone who was not supportive of the airport," she said.
Groskopf portrayed Yarmouth's bid for money to study moving the airport to Otis as a purely precautionary measure. If the federal government decides to keep Otis open, he said, he would fully support Barnstable's new terminal in Hyannis.
By an 11-1 vote, the council also rejected a separate proposal by Milne that could have stripped the airport commission entirely of its control of the airport and transferred it to the town manager.
Milne alleged the airport, a financially self-sufficient town department that receives no local tax subsidy, is not generating as much revenue as it could. Milne said the town manager and his advisers could more profitably operate it and property it owns outside the airport fence, namely the K-Mart Plaza on Route 132.
Town Manager John Klimm has refused to state publicly his position on Milne's airport proposals.
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