Airfield needs a lift

3

To the Editor:

Katama Airfield makes Edgartown special. At the airfield, the hangar is the centerpiece. The hangar is long past its useful life. The current hangar, pieced together in the 1930s from hurricane remnants, has a rotten foundation, roof leaks, and aging internal supports that have been reinforced too many times. It needs to be replaced with a new hangar that has all the charm of the old one. One that has the same look, also with corrugated metal, divided-light windows, a cupola, sliding doors, and area for a small office.

The hangar defines the airfield, and is the gateway to Edgartown to visitors arriving by small place. It stores airplanes, as well as maintenance and mowing equipment. It is the base of all operations at the airfield.

Many Edgartown residents have supported a fund to replace the hangar at the airfield. Their contributions and pledges through the Katama Airfield Trust have raised $150,000 in recent years. These gifts, when added to a previous $250,000 Community Preservation Grant, provide a $400,000 subsidy to the town, and allows a significantly reduced warrant article request of $950,000 at this April 11 Edgartown town election. Last year, there was a tie vote. This year, we want to break the tie.

The airfield generates revenues for the town. It leases restaurant, hangar, and airplane parking spaces. It also collects landing fees on small planes landing there, and sells aviation fuel. Total receipts are approximately $90,000 per year.

The airfield has also been a remarkable way to preserve what is now a 190-acre legacy of Dorothy and Stephen Gentle, who gifted most of the value of the land to the town in a bargain sale in exchange for its preservation as a grass airfield. Over time the town, the Nature Conservancy and others came in to add to the initial land holdings, and established long-term conservation practices to protect the flora and fauna of the South Shore grassy plains. It’s a unique partnership that has preserved this exceptional open land.

We ask for your vote on April 11th to approve funding of the replacement of the hangar.

Learn more about Katama Airfield at katamaairfieldtrust.com.

Harald Findlay, chair
Katama Airfield Commission

 

3 COMMENTS

  1. The Katama airfield is special but the hangar has absolutely nothing to do with the preservation of the historic airfield. This is about a $1.4mm subsidy to wealthy private plane owners to have a really nice place to park and service their really expensive recreational vehicles. The airfield has functioned just fine [with] the other existing hangar. If we need to remove dilapidated hangar, so be it. But to divert public funds from real community needs so that a few wealthy people can benefit is beyond the pale. The revenue from the proposed hangar is a pittance relative to the cost. Vote no on the the hangar!

  2. I know there are rich people on Martha’s Vineyard. The small plane enthusiasts that enjoy the Katama Airfield aren’t in that category any more so than classic car enthusiasts that like to tinker with the ’56 Chevy they enjoy showing off in the parade. Come out to the Airfield on a Saturday afternoon and check this out for yourself. When Steve Gentle was not rich when he set about assembling the parcels that became the Katama Airfield. He just had a passion for small airplanes and his subsequent role teaching WWI aviators to fly in Rochester, NY. In the early 80s, the Town of Edgartown contributed $625,000 to acquiring 122 acres from Steve and Dorothy Gentle for a deeply discounted price of $1.45 million. This investment by Edgartown, combined with over $2 million from the State of Massachusetts and the Nature Conservancy, achieved protection for over 900 acres of South Shore grasslands. So all Vineyard residents are now rich because this $625,000 investment by Edgartown is now worth well over $100 million, and more importantly, all residents can enjoy the spectacular open, protected views along the South Shore. Steve and Dorothy Gentle chose not exploit the potential riches possible in developing the Katama Airfield because he felt his passion for small planes and the historic grass airfield was worth more than being really rich. The Town, in accepting the gift, agreed to keep it as an Airfield. Reconstructing the hangar is fully in keeping with the spirit of Steve and Dorothy’s gift to the Town. All Airfields have hangars. They are where the Airfield Manager works, where the maintenance equipment is stored, where planes can be safeguarded in inclement weather, where pilots come to check in, where supplies are stored and many other purposes. We should honor Steve and Dorothy’s gift and rebuild the hangar that he painstakingly rebuilt after the ’34 hurricane so that his Airfield could have a proper hangar. He got it back then, and I hope Edgartown voters get it that this is the right thing to do.

  3. I agree that the airfield creation makes for a wonderful story and Edgartown is much better off for it and all the conservation that comes with it. But the simple facts are that a new hanger serving the needs of a very few private airplane owners is just not supportable. Why should the taxpayers of Edgartown pay for a garage for a couple of private planes? The $250,000 “grant” from Community Preservation funds comes directly from taxpayer generated revenue and the additional $950,000 being sought this year brings the total to $1.2 million. There are much better uses for that level of funding. Realistically, without that funding the airfield will still serve the community well. The $150,00 privately raised should be used for demolition.

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