||| FROM ERIC GOURLEY |||
Orcas airport is an invaluable resource for our community. One advantage it provides is transportation of medical patients. I know. As an OAA MercyPilot I have flown patients to the mainland five days a week for six weeks for radiation and chemo treatments as have other pilots. And then there was our neighbor with a nail through her hand. I flew her off island avoiding a long ferry delay or cancellation. In a critical life saving emergency our airport provides a landing strip and heliport for Island Air Ambulance, Airlift Northwest, and LifeFlight. I almost daily see EMTs arriving at the airport in an ambulance and expertly transferring a patient on a gurney to an aircraft ensuring arrival in Bellingham, Skagit, or Anacortes in 15-20 minutes.
Getting off island by air is in many ways easier than getting back. Nearly two years ago I had complex spine surgery in Seattle. My wife made arrangements to bring me home by ferry only to have the ferry cancelled. Fortunately local pilots Rick Fant and Allen Wilcox came to our rescue. Before picking us up at Boeing Field they removed the back seats of Allen’s plane so I could be laid down. They carefully lifted me in and out through the plane’s double doors and had me at my front door in less than an hour and a half. Already in excruciating pain, I don’t know how I would have managed the long car ride plus ferry ordeal.
Rick Fant is running for Port Commissioner. He is not only a pilot but is a flight instructor as well. Through aviation he has been able to manage projects for major companies yet live on Orcas for twenty years. Rick is a valued friend, a man who is energetic and knows how to get things done. He is realistic and does not envision a larger airport but a better airport that serves all Orcas residents. He is the kind of person our community needs on the Port to help guide its future for the benefit of the whole community.
The Port’s mission is to promote economic growth and safety in the community. It already does that well in many ways. It can also have a positive impact on non-aviation goals. As an example, it could promote affordable housing for teachers, EMTs, retail, restaurant, and ferry workers. How about improving our marine resources? A volunteer pilot program? The Port’s future requires vision and action. Rick Fant personifies both. Please give him your support by voting for him in the August 1 and November 7 elections.
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I agree with Eric. Rick is in his element here. The core of the Orcas Port is the Orcas Airport, and is essential that Port Commissioner appreciate intimately the disciplined safety environment of aviation within the vision of our community. It is not reasonable for our our airport to become the precursor of another Nantucket.
Of course I agree that the airport is undeniably essential. I would like to point out though that the Port is not only about the airport. Boat access is also a core responsibility of the Port.
I still have copies of the maps for proposed airport expansion drawn up only a few years ago. At that time, the Port Commission and the airport manager favored a plan which would have wiped out over half of the slips at the marina adjacent to the airport as well as demanding re-routing Mt. Baker Road. The Port Commission at that time “forgot” that the Port is not only about the airport and airplanes. I hope that the next Port Commissioners are not so single minded.
I will vote for the candidate who most convinces me that they will stop airplanes from buzzing Eastsound and shutting up every human speaking there, every time; disturbing every human, whether they be working, sleeping, praying, singing, nursing, caregiving, recovering, dying. Do I trust a pilot to do this? I don’t know. Convince me. Respect all those people; present an argument that will correct those folks who repeatedly ridicule people who wonder why every meeting, every Village Green performance, every conversation must be interrupted by pilots. Stop shutting people up with the one-word “wind” argument. Don’t pretend that every airplane is saving a life or supporting commerce. And don’t pretend this is okay.
Thea, it’s interesting you bring this up. Few past Commissioners understand a larger spectrum of a True Port District..
if we look to our neighbors on San Juan, note the Port District plays a major role on the water.. from my interaction as a boater, they seem to be doing it very well.. And they control traffic coming by Vessels and Sea Planes.
Years ago I brought this theme up to a serving Port Commissioner when Rosario was being sold.. My share was, I believe the Port has access to funding, think of how much good could come from an excellent facility that has Planes and Boats arriving, maintaining a great resource that also helps its neighbors..
it was pennies on the dollar then.. it could have been an opportunity to help facilitate future revenues while not adding burden on taxpayers..
Thanks for mentioning the quiet question, Port Authority.. it has many useable demonstrable opportunities which could really bless Orcas, if done well.
I wanted to be clear, on Marina only.. the price then wasn’t much different then a recent Port purchase on a small home to be removed on the West side of runway.
Okay, Pegeen, So you would rather have a person who knows nothing about how to minimize prop noise than a long standing member of the community who cares about airplane noise and teaches pilots how to fly the airplane “quietly?”
Frankly, I got nervous at how hard Rick Fant pushed economic growth, which is what got us here in Eastsound Wetland Watershed through sole industry of tourism and the fact that we keep importing people from other places to do jobs that locals could do, thus exacerbating the housing problem. So how will he fix it when Mia and the commissioners have also looked into it? Mia has already been trying to find ways that economic growth can benefit the community, and this was part of her platform when she ran for office the first time.
Friday Harbor has a wonderful Port Authority marina with access to good showers and the like. Whoever did that was forward-thinking. I see no viable place for that on Orcas, at least not in the Eastsound UGA – especially given the Critial Areas along both shorelines, north and south of our wetland watershed. NOT the place for a marina or marina expansion or gutting any part of Brandts Landing to expand or widen runway separation or put a Customs office or anything else.
I think Mia did a fine job as commissioner. I get nervous when someone promotes their whole platform hard on economic growth. Unfettered, uncontrolled economic growth got us gentrified and unaffordable. Not telling the whole story of how we got here does a great disservice to voters who are trying to figure out who to vote for.
We at Lavender Hollow – young and old – are going deaf from the constant, ever-increasing noise pollution from planes flying over us day and night, all taking off directly over our rooftops, which adds to the anxiety of wondering when the next crash will be and if it will hit one of our buildings. So far we’ve been lucky. Unless you live under it, you cannot imagine how LOUD it is for all of us in clustered housing, day and night. Much of this is commercial traffic from Kenmore. The percentage that is mercy flights and other necessary and essential medical flights is small – and no one argues that we need it! I was concerned when Rick Fant talked about the ferries being unworkable and making our airport more efficient. For whom? This reeks of classism to someone in an economic bracket who can never hope to literally get “out from under” and is going deaf, as is our whole neighborhood of people living and working “under” all that noise.
I want the whole truth to be known to voters. There is a dark side to unlimited and unmanaged growth. We are shushed and shamed for daring to speak of it. But we will not be silenced. Though many of us are going deaf from the noise, we still have our voices and our pens. You cannot have a conversation in town in a business or residence. Sometimes there are literally 5 planes taking off – all to the south – in less than 10 minutes. You cannot have a concert without everything stopping for the ever-increasing air traffic; musicians continually comment on this. Planes come and go as early as 6 a.m. and as late as 1 or 2 a.m. It’s hard to sleep. The FAA’s solution is to give us money to move and move Mt. Baker road! Who profits from that? Not the 54% + mandated to live here but who can find no housing because it is all either VRBOs or luxury condos.
To speak of these things as if they will solve it for us ferry-riding ground-dwellers, is Unacceptable. The light pollution alone is distressing. it is easy for folks who don’t have to live with and under all these stressors to think this is all a great idea – growth and more growth for the upper classes to enjoy their private planes and helicopters. But is it? For whom is this great? I can assure you, not those of us who must live here and have no recourse. We are the majority who are and will be impacted.
The airport runway paved over a peat bog at the north end. Those are the most valuable, high-functioning wetlands there are. I would like to see a well planned Port Authority, since Ports have all the power. So far, I have seen only poor location, lack of respect that is is a wetland watershed and our drinking water, ever-increasing noise pollution and light pollution – all of this over the largest contiguous wetland watershed on Orcas. There is valuable and Critical shoreline habitat on both sides of the-one mile wide (now mostly treeless) land mass that includes Eastsound. Downtown “commercial” Eastsound is zoned 40 Units per acre – those are downtown Seattle densities and have no business on a tiny island in a rural island archipelago.
I can’t in good conscience vote for anyone pushing “economic growth’ over all else – but since that IS the purpose of a port, then it is up to the taxing base citizens and NON-pilots to push back against runaway growth, and importing more and more people for jobs that locals should get in the first place. Specificity is paramount here, as is balance.
I would like to know Rick Fant’s position on this – what about the rest of us who must live under all of this? Do we count too? None of this was addressed at the LOWV forum.
How can we talk “safety” when we allowed commercial air traffic to push us over 10,000 enplanements a year so we get the million bucks per year, and now we are mandated by the FAA to allow planes up to 79′ wing span – which will bring highly polluting jet fuel to our airport and the wetland watershed on which it sits?
So many questions. Looking for answers that reassure me. None forthcoming so far. Someone please address these important questions. Or do they not concern anyone whose back yard is outside of the reach of these problems – given that UGAs mandate that over 54% of year round population live in them? (that too is not happening, thanks to VRBOs and luxury condos being built for folks who don’t even live here, springing up like noxious weeds.) Gentrification is ugly but no one will admit it or address it
@Eric Gourley, Bob Phalan is a longer-standing community member than I am and I’ve been here for 42 yrs, if we are going to piss on fire hydrants to establish our “local’-ness. I think you have to be here 50 yrs to be considered local anyway, haha. Bob has been showing up at Port meetings. He may represent that balance we need in order to represent not just the aviation class, but all of us including ‘non pilots.”
Also, there IS another candidate – the incumbent, Mia Kartigainer, who was elected, ran on a platform to help turn around the unrealistic and over-bloated Master Plan fiasco, and also to try to use some of this economic growth incentive to benefit the community. She has worked hard on these things. It’s a drag that her lousy phone reception prohibited her from speaking for herself at the forum, but I am giving my vote to Mia for a job well done – a job I want her to be able to continue. She was willing to learn – and has learned a lot – so lack of experience should not be a deterrent from someone holding a seat. Sincerity, a collaborative spirit, and listening are all qualities I look for in someone who is going to hold public office and represent all the stakeholders involved.
Eric Gourley, I want a candidate who acknowledges that this airport is allowing flights over Eastsound when there is no wind, but wind and safety is used as an excuse to keep doing it. A candidate who acknowledges airplane noise pollution is a HUGE problem for residents in town and for all in town who are frequently in disbelief that airplanes are allowed to buzz town so many times in a day and they are not saving lives, they are just thinking it’s their business and nobody else’s if they want to take the scenic route over town and save a little fuel money. These are NOT adequate reasons to impact town so much! Believe me, if we knew each airplane that shut everyone in town up was saving a life, we would all be waving and cheering. People in town need quiet as much as all the folks out in the woods, and our representatives should be working to lower the impact on our sweet rural town, not making it unliveable by simply ignoring the impacts! And how foolhardy will this “look the other way” practice look if a plane in trouble actually lands on homes or people? We had a recent warning when the plane crash landed off Mt. Baker Road. I dare say if people are killed, some lawyer will be researching the flight path and the wind directions at the moments prior to takeoff of that plane.