The latest skirmish in the seemingly never-ending dogfight between the Dukes County commission and its appointed airport commission played out last week when the county commissioners voted 6 to 0, with one abstention, to increase the size of the airport commission from seven to nine members.
County leaders said they wanted to take advantage of the many good candidates who had applied to fill one vacancy on the airport commission due to an unexpected resignation. Hogwash.
Stung by a decision by Dukes County Superior Court Associate Justice Richard J. Chin on August 7 in favor of the airport commission on every point in its request for a preliminary injunction against the county commission, county treasurer Noreen Mavro Flanders, and county manager Martina Thornton, the county commissioners decided to strike back and use the only oversight authority it has ever legally had over the county-owned airport to try and reshuffle the deck in their favor — assuming of course that the newly appointed airport commissioners will ignore their statutory authority and two judicial decisions that support it, and begin to toe the county line.
It was unnecessary. The county commissioners have an opportunity every year on a rotating basis to appoint qualified candidates to the airport commission. Appointments are generally made in February. Their vote to expand outside that cycle was the latest move in a long and well-documented effort by the county commission to bring its appointed board to heel.
It is ironic that one of the two candidates appointed to fill a seat on the newly expanded airport commission, Myron Garfinkle of West Tisbury, a pilot and businessman with an interest in aviation, first applied, unsuccessfully, for an appointment in January 2003. Then, as now, the county commission exercised its appointing authority to bring the airport commission under its thumb.
In a story published Jan. 15, 2003, The Times reported, “The commissioners bypassed two experienced members of the airport commission seeking reappointment, as well as individuals with extensive business backgrounds and in some cases aviation experience, in favor of the appointment of two fellow county commissioners, John Alley of West Tisbury and Nelson Smith of Edgartown, and a county employee, T.J. Hegarty of West Tisbury, the county rodent-control officer.”
Eleven years and many appointments later, Mr. Garfinkle, who continued to seek appointment, suddenly made the cut, as did Robert Rosenbaum, a seasonal resident of Chilmark, former businessman, and pilot.
Their experience, expertise, and willingness to serve on an airport commission that has bungled its recent handling of a labor dispute is welcome, but not at the expense of subverting the appointment process, or to allow the county commissioners to count coup in their battle with the airport leadership.
The first time the county created a nine-member airport commission was soon after a change in the county charter, when in August 1995 the newly elected seven county commissioners self-appointed themselves to the airport commission. Barnstable Municipal Airport operates with a seven-member commission. Nantucket Memorial Airport, one of the state’s busiest airports, makes do with five.
Last week, in arguing for an expansion, county commission chairman Leonard Jason, Jr., of Chilmark said, “I had a tough choice between three candidates for one slot. If we can get good candidates on there sooner rather than later, it’s a benefit to the entire community.”
“I think an injection of new people with fresh ideas, for me that’s important,” said commissioner and 19 year veteran of the Tisbury board of selectman, Tristan Israel. “It seems to be within our rights as an appointing authority.”
Maybe so, but that does not make it right. It does make it clumsy.
In January 1997, Stephen R. Muench, executive director of the Massachusetts Aeronautics Commission (MAC), made it clear to the county commissioners in no uncertain terms that authority for the airport rested with the airport commission and airport manager, and that any effort to subvert that arrangement, including by reorganization, would jeopardize millions of dollars in state and federal funding for a new terminal.
The county commissioners signed grant assurances stating that they got MAC’s message. But they did not, and once again state aeronautics officials have taken notice.
Last week Christopher Willenborg, administrator of the MassDOT Aeronautics Division, MAC’s successor agency, in a letter to county commission Chairman Jason, asked the chairman for the “rationale for the increase in membership, the qualifications of the two appointees, and how the appointments benefit or improve the functioning of the airport commission beyond that of what was a seven-member board.”
Perhaps state attention will help bring an end to this senseless and costly legal quarrel. The fact that MassDOT decided to step in should be an indication that something is amiss in the county approach to the airport commission. Of course, one might have reached the same conclusion from two judicial decisions in favor of the airport commission’s statutory authority.
The county commissioners have all the authority they need to influence airport affairs with good appointments, made with due consideration and not out of spite. It is time they acknowledge that fact and seek an end to the ongoing legal battle that Superior Court Associate Justice Richard Chin has already said is unlikely to go their way.