The politics of dancing
Earlier this month, the Venice Airport Business Association held a press conference in which the organization blasted at city officials for the condition of runway 04-22. VABA accused the mayor and new council members of waging a war against the airport. VABA's accusations continued, stating that the city was playing politics with pilots lives and safety.

Instead of issuing a response from his own hand, Mayor Ed Martin designated the task of responding to the criticism to outgoing City Manager Marty Black who, in turn, handed the job off to Pam Johnson, the city's somewhat dizzy PR spinner.

The result was not only not what the mayor asked for, but was in near-total agreement with VABA. The press release, which has since been inexplicably pulled from the city web site's collection of press releases, cited a report dated March of this year from Florida's DOT. According to Johnson's release, and the way it was interpreted by the press, this new report cited new information that indicated that runway 04-22 was in much worse shape than previously believed or documented, thus supporting VABA's stance that runway 04-22 is unsafe.

Both the Herald-Trib and the Gondo ran with the story, citing Johnson's press release as substantiation for VABA's claims. The resulting political spin was devastating, making it appear that members of council were not only political villains but potentially murderous ones. The newspapers and VABA had a field day.

Uhhhhh..... wait a minute....
Problem. Two of them, actually.

First off, five members of council have since stated that they knew nothing about the existence of this so-called new highly damning report until they read about it in the newspapers. Of the seven council members polled by me right after the story hit the news, four council members responded that they had no prior knowledge, while Mayor Ed Martin immediately emailed Black asking why he hadn't been informed of this latest development that this new report seemed to be indicating.

Two members of council didn't respond at all to the question about their prior knowledge of the report: John Simmonds and Rick Tacy. Still, that makes five out of seven council members that were ambushed in this PR drive-by shooting, with the shooter's office just down the hall from council chambers.  

The second problem is that the DOT "report" wasn't a report as such, more of a summary of prior reports with an additional walk-by eyeball review by a DOT official, this according to Airport Manager Fred Watts. Watts stated to me in a telephone interview last week that what the March report actually said was much less disastrous than how Johnson and the newspapers portrayed it to the press and that the report contained no new information.

Thus the very spin machine that Martin entrusted to clear the air had, seemingly deliberately, tossed him straight over the bridge.

Sounding genuinely and understandably angry at the position he had suddenly found himself in, Watts was emphatic, quick, and loud in his response to my first question: "Do you really think that I would let airplanes land on an unsafe runway? Does anyone really think that? I'd close it. That runway IS safe and still has an expected lifespan of about five more years."

According to Watts, 04-22 is safe as long as weight restrictions are adhered to. 04-22 can't and won't handle the same weights as the newly paved runway, but it is still perfectly serviceable for lighter planes, which include most propeller planes. For heavier planes and jets, there is a better and newer runway available.

Watts downplayed the March report. "There is nothing new in it, it's a summary of other reports. It does put the runway in the bottom third of runways in Florida, but we already knew that," Watts stated.

Which also means that there are a hell of a lot of other runways in Florida that are in worse shape than Venice's runway 04-22 and that are still considered safe to use.

So why the fiction and why slime the mayor?
As to why council was unaware of the report, Watts' explanation was equally to the point: "I don't give every piece of paper that comes across my desk to council, there's no reason to do that. There was nothing substantially new in that report that the city manager and council weren't already aware of. If there was any new development that affected safety, a copy would go straight to the city manager's office."

Watts explained that he had provided the March DOT report to city hall after receiving a request for information that was to be used in a press release. Watts chose to provide that particular report for a seemingly simple reason: it was the most recent summary from an outside agency. Which, once you think about it, makes absolute sense.

As to how and why the document was politically spun to embarrass the mayor, Watts suddenly turned off the anger and shifted into a soft, cautious tone: "I have nothing to do with that, so I'm not going to speculate about it."

"C'mon Fred," I asked, "city hall took this document and spun it out so that it appeared to be saying things that, according to you, it clearly wasn't, and a lot of mud landed on a lot of faces as a result. How or why did that happen?"

"Again, I'm not going to speculate about that," Watts quietly said.

OK, fair enough. I really didn't expect him to bite his bosses' hands, but the question is out there, so I had to ask. Watts had clearly been used here by somebody higher up on the food chain, and Watts was taking a vicious beating as a result. That he wasn't inclined to invite yet more abuse could be characterized as his survival instincts kicking in.

Do I believe Watts? Yes, I do. I've never known Watts to give me a dishonest answer to any question that I've put to him yet, and I don't suspect for a second that this would be a first. Moreover, this is all way too goofy to not be true, which is axiomatic of Venice politics as I've learned over the years: the more unbelievably weird a story sounds, the more likely it is that the story is true.

Bullock enters the fray
Alan Bullock, the city's Administrative Services Director, is another someone I have come to respect and trust. Like Watts, I have never had any reason to suspect anything that he has stated was anything less than the truth.

Bullock addressed the issue in a more calming manner in an email sent to council yesterday. Not being the under-siege airport manager, and thus professionally not having as much at stake, Bullock could afford to be calmer:

Mayor & Council,

     The City Manager has asked that I provide you with input from the city's insurance carrier regarding any potential liability issues surrounding runway 4/22.
     Fortuitously, our main insurance agent (Brian Cottrell of the Public Risk Insurance Agency) is a pilot of small aircraft and as such is ideally positioned to advise. I spoke with Mr. Cottrell this afternoon on this matter.
     In his estimation, although runway 4/22 lies in the bottom third of Florida runways in terms of its condition, he considers it perfectly safe to use, has used it several times himself and has no plans to discontinue its use. He indicates that as long as the city continues to exercise due diligence, there should be no immediate liability concerns.
     In event of claim, the city has a liability policy in place that would provide a legal defense in event of a claim for negligence. The only caveat to this is that there is a policy exclusion for failure to meet contractual obligations (a common exclusion in insurance policies). Accordingly, if a damaged party were to make a claim specifically alleging failure on the city's part to meet contractual obligations (ref. the 1947/1948 Quit Claim Deeds), insurance coverage would not apply.
     Mr Cottrell also endorses two recommendations made by the Airport Manager in a memo of July 11, 2008 to the City Manager, namely:
     1. Change the AWOS (Automated Weather Observing System) broadcast to state that runway 4/22 is the preferred 'noise abatement' runway instead of the preferred 'turbine operations' runway.
     2. Issue a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) to reflect non-standard safety areas and current pavement conditions. This would also be reflected in the AFD (Airport Facilities Directory).
     I will be pleased to address any further risk management concerns upon request.

Alan Bullock
Director of Administrative Services
941 486 2626, ext. 21001

Dead cash cows don't moo
So that ought to end that. But it won't. The CQG business interests that have locked onto the airport as their next cash cow, now that land development is in the toilet, is desperate. There's big bills to pay and lavish lifestyles to support, and the airport has long been a great source of corporate welfare to leaseholders and to the Boone law firm that represents a majority of them.

The economic and political winds have both shifted, and the result is not pretty for folks like Art Nadel, primary owner of the Venice Jet Center and a Boone client. Having bought the Venice Jet Center with the thought of a marina and a Marriott in the mix, this was a surefire economic winner, a great investment. With no marina and no Marriott (and no MEA plan that would have allowed for both), I'm betting that the Venice Jet Center is turning into a long term money hole rather than the short term one that was originally anticipated.

If that's true, then the scorched-earth politics that has been coming out of the Boones and VABA suddenly makes a whole lot more sense. It also means it ain't gonna end soon and that even uglier stuff is yet to come.

My first reaction: I can't wait. I love a political bloodbath, and this one has been years in the making. But... like Watts, I don't want to speculate on all that. It's above my pay grade.

The upside is that I do, and probably will for some time, have more subject matter worth writing about than I could possibly ever get around to. Thanks to the Boones, VABA, the CQG, and a few dumb missteps by the good guys, there will be no slow news days for quite some time.

John Patten is the head of Web Operations for Creative Pages, and has worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He can also be incredibly rude at times.