EVERETT – Drawing more aviation-related businesses such as high-tech branch campuses, small aerospace suppliers and research labs to Paine Field wouldn’t necessarily prevent the addition of passenger flights, the airport’s deputy director says.
At the same time, economic power can generate political power, supporters say.
Two identical bills in the state Senate and House of Representatives are aimed at studying how to draw business to smaller airports around the state, such as in Arlington and at Paine Field in Everett. Manufacturing, research and development, education and training for the aerospace industry are listed as the types of businesses to be studied.
By taking up space with community-friendly businesses, passenger airlines wouldn’t have as much room for their operations, the bills’ supporters reason.
“The more uses there are, the harder it is for the commercial aspect,” said Mukilteo Mayor Joe Marine, who testified in favor of the bills in Olympia last week.
No matter what happens, things can always change.
Any business that signs a lease at an airport has to agree to a federally mandated clause that it has to agree to a buyout if that property is needed for aviation uses, Paine Field deputy director Bill Dolan said. That wouldn’t necessarily mean passenger airlines, Dolan said. Property could be needed, for example, for flight-operation expansions by current tenants Boeing or Goodrich.
The bills, sponsored by state Rep. Brian Sullivan and Sen. Paull Shin, both D-Mukilteo, call for a study group of representatives from business, government and education to be appointed by legislative leaders. A report would be filed by June 30, 2007.
House Bill 2383 and Senate Bill 6328 have each been approved by their respective committees.
Sullivan and Shin said economic development was their primary motivation in proposing the bills, and if the measures prevent commercial flights, so much the better.
“It shows a better way, I think,” Sullivan said.
Save Our Communities, the group that has led opposition to commercial flights at Paine Field, supports the idea.
“We get what the county is looking for, and that is decent, high-wage, family-wage jobs,” said the group’s president and former Mukilteo mayor Don Doran. Nearby communities, he said, get an airport that’s used for commerce “and not necessarily for recreation or flying people to the sun states.”
The bills are silent on the question of passenger flights.
“If we had our druthers, we’d like the language to just be a tad bit stronger” regarding expansion, Doran said.
Shin and Marine say developing the airport could bring economic clout that could stave off regular commercial service.
“To me,” said Shin, “the political stability comes from economic stability.”
Neither Doran nor Marine is concerned that promoting development could grease the way for passenger service.
Sullivan said he’d heard inferences that the bills were intended to do just that. Not true, he said.
“There have been no secrets,” Sullivan said. “There’s no nefarious, Machiavellian process going on.”
Reporter Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439 or sheets@heraldnet.com.
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