Airport’s ideas are a joke

I was more than a bit taken aback by the lame revenue generation suggestions offered in the lead story of [the March 29]
IBJ (“Airport seeking revenue boost”).

Parking rooftop farmer’s markets? Driving to the middle of nowhere, paying outrageous parking fees, and submitting
ourselves to Transportation Security Administration screening so as to have an overpriced and unappetizing lunch near a boarding
gate? Are you kidding me?

Have they considered bake sales?

And the Airport Authority management thinks these ideas can be parlayed into consulting services—when they further
betray their own lack of business savvy by signing a $1.3 million consulting contract to sort out what to do with the white
elephant that is the old terminal complex? Give me a break!

The story should have focused more on the recklessness of those who decided to build a discretionary $1 billion structure
and who have burdened the Airport Authority with “paying some $40 million a year toward debt on the palatial facility.” This
story is much more about the consequences of incurring this crushing debt obligation. How about shining a light on those folks
and making them accountable, IBJ?

I worry that “We the people” will end up holding the bag for this “municipal corporation” when it
finds that its revenue-generating ideas ain’t going to cut it.

Lucas Oil Stadium and the new airport terminal are beautiful and impressive structures that this community neither needed
nor can now afford. And neither the Capital Improvement Board nor the airport authority instill confidence in their efforts
to put lipstick on these pigs.
____________

Harold Carter