By Donna Westfall – -NEW UPDATED INFO as of Sept. 11th 10:15 am: The previous public member was Matt Fearing who resigned on July 10th. The ad showing the application for public member was published in the Triplicate in July. There were 2 submissions of which David Finigan was one.
Sept. 10th – 2017 – Ok, quick recap. Former 5th District Supervisor, David Finigan, spearheaded the $2.8 million loan to build us a nice new airport terminal. As far as I know, it should be finished sometime next year – 2018. At that point, about $95,000 in interest will be due to be repaid on the loan. Also remember that none of the so-called “partners” coughed up one red cent. It’s all on us. Isn’t that special?
With great anticipation and worry, breaths are collectively being held as PenAir may be announcing their withdrawal from the Crescent City airport at any moment. Then where does that leave us?
Bids were put out to attract other airlines. Have any applied? Not to my knowledge. If there’s no airline servicing Crescent City, what do we need a terminal for? And if there’s no airline servicing Crescent City, then the Essential Air Service (EAS) subsidy goes bye-bye.
BUT, aside from all of that, let’s look at the upcoming Board of Supervisors, September 12th Consent Agenda Item #7… “To approve and appoint David Finigan as the new PUBLIC MEMBER of the Border Coast Regional Airport Authority (BCRAA).”
I didn’t even know who the old public member was. I didn’t know they were accepting applications for a new public member. I don’t even know why there’s a BCRAA when the so-called “partners” aren’t doing a blasted thing. And mostly what I don’t know is WHY in the world anyone in their right mind would want former Supervisor Finigan, on the board at all!@%&+!#?
Are they stupid? Are they corrupt? What’s going on? The only one to point out all those obvious problems (mentioned above) at that time looming on the horizon was, guess who? Supervisor Roger Gitlin, that’s who.
So, tell me….. why would anyone want Finigan on the BCRAA as a public member? Didn’t get enough of Finigan’s Folly the first time around?
Methinks the time has come to pull this from the consent agenda because BCRAA Commissioners Lori Cowan & Gerry Hemmingsen already voted on Sept 7th to put him on the Sept. 12th agenda. Of the 3 stooges that control the BOS, that only leaves the last stooge, Sup. Chris Howard to cast his approval. Personally, I’d like to see this item tabled until we learn how many other applicants there were and who they were. And, I also think we need to put in some rule about former politicians NOT being able to go on Boards as public members at all.
So it appears that all this talk of “NO AIRLINE!!!” is short bus news. We now have two applicants to suck millions our of our tax dollars in the form of outrageous subsidies! These good folks, however, want to fly us to Sacramento, Oakland and Portland. The inconvenience of these “hubs” not to mention the uncomfortable planes makes you wonder if it’s worth $2-$4 MILLION per year, so that a few folks can avoid the 2 hour drive to Medford or Arcata. Both of those airports have real planes AND connections to real hubs and destinations like San Francisco.
Albert E said, “Problems cannot be solved with the same mind set that created them.”
I say “Finigan, Your public service has been “self-service”.
Donna hits the nail right on the head when she asks,”If there’s no airline servicing Crescent City, what do we need a terminal for? And if there’s no airline servicing Crescent City, then the Essential Air Service (EAS) subsidy goes bye-bye.” And if none of the above exists we certainly do not need BCRAA.
Finigan and one other of the conjoined quadruplets signed the covenant for the airport property (Martha in 2002 and Finigan in 2007 after the covenant got altered and rewritten two times after Martha received it in 2002, and the corrected, to the original version was received by Finigan and recorded in 2007. See link below. THE COVENANT became necessary after 1,600 /55-gallon drums of pesticides were dumped at the airport. The correct procedure for storing pesticide drums is to empty the toxic pesticides at an area that is designated for toxic waste, poke holes in the empty containers and triple rinse the 55 gallon drums. The drums are now safe to be stored at the airport. The covenant is to protect the lives of the citizens by attempting to contain the very contaminated groundwater within a plume that has formed within an area of clay. The covenant restricts the land use in order to NOT disturb the land above the toxic plume. There are monitoring wells along the perimeter of the plume that are tested at regular intervals (I hope).
See the link below. I find it amazing that the Supervisors could be so aggressive with the major construction of runways, falling trees,etc. and almost apathetic about exposing citizens to the toxins. I would like to be able to observe the water specimens being taken from the wells.
http://www.countyofdelnorte.us/agendas/bos/MG37364/AS37373/AI37387/DO37525/DO_37525.PDF
I get it. Supervisors are concerned with the business of the county. Can they not be concerned about their constituents health and lives simultaneously?
Mr. Finigan does have a lot of knowledge in regards to BCRAA…however, it maybe a violation of the FPPC because it could be considered a conflict since he served on the board as a supervisor and was an integral part of getting this project shoved through…by taking the mitigation funds as back up in case the airport can’t pay their bill….which is stupid because Del Norte owns the airport…the reason why there are no partnerships tied directly to the terminal is because Del Norte County Supervisors fooled their partnerships into believing that the $500,000.00 that was previously donated by Brookings was for the entire project, not the runway only…so when Sue Daughtery and Matt Leitner went before the city of Brookings again with their pitiful hands extended Brookings said, NO..Daughtery and Leitner went to every previous donor for more money including the tribes…all said NO…because they were duped into believing the first donation was for the entire project…in the meantime you see Chair Howard placing Lori Cowan on the BCRAA board because she is the pawn who will do what he wants her to do, and she does it well…LIES.
I didn’t see any public announcement about applying for the position. Was there any? Does anyone know if there’s a requirement to announce the position and accept applications?