Letter: Investigate nonsense at airport

In letter after letter to the newspaper, concerned residents have asked —pleaded — for Beaufort County officials to provide the reasoning and fiscal justification for continuing to fund projects for an airport in fiscal distress.

Commercial traffic is down, a trend that has literally continued year after year since 2008, with 2014-15 seeing a 42 percent decrease in commercial passenger activity. Yet the county continues to forge ahead with plans to lengthen the runway and remodel the terminal, adding to a large county taxpayer burden that could and should be used to fund more worthy — and realistic — projects.

Concerned residents have questioned the need, the plans and the costs for the county’s proposed airport expansion, providing hundreds of pages of documentation to underscore their concern.

At one point, there was a discussion with Packet staff about pursuing the facts in this matter. But to date, nothing has come of that discussion. This newspaper has recently printed several high-profile, in-depth series of articles on such issues as lack of sewers in native islander areas, the school board’s hiring policies, and crime levels in local apartment complexes. Isn’t it time for the Packet to step up and provide the same kind of good, old-fashioned investigative reporting on the airport issue?

This story was originally published March 20, 2016 at 6:52 PM with the headline "Letter: Investigate nonsense at airport."