Make it illegal to build planes, then

The Snohomish County Council’s opposition to airline passenger service out of Paine Field is about the moral equivalent of the city of Redmond mounting a legal fight to oppose the selling of software in their city. Apparently they want the tax and employment benefits of building and selling airplanes, but they don’t want them flying in their skies.

They must believe that people who want nearby air service should be punished by being forced to spend the time and gasoline to drive through the traffic chokepoint of Seattle twice in order to make business connections. Do people who want convenient air service really deserve that, and where is the “green” in that concept?

Paine Field has existed for longer than about 90 percent of the people who live nearby the airfield. Only a naïve person would believe they could move next to an airfield and not see the area become more developed through time. And I suspect a few of them don’t like the idea of a more busy airport only because they don’t like the seemingly hectic pace of their own lives. Will lack of air service out of Paine Field really change that? I don’t think so!

So if the Snohomish County Council has real philosophical objections to air traffic growth, they should want that for everyone all over the world, and they should make it illegal to build and sell airplanes in their county. If they can’t do that, then they should change their position on the matter. Otherwise, people might suspect that they are just pandering to the vocal minority of malcontents who are never happy, even when their ice cream is cold.

STAN WALKER