June 22, 2008

Nick K

Warning!! Warning!! It is not Harry Tembenis in the paper, but me. Check out Nick K Story today in the Telegram. Believe me I do not do the blog or website to see my name in the paper, but truly believe transportation issues like the airport and reliable commuter service are the keys to the future success of Worcester.

To that end, I would like to thank Nick for helping get the word out on the "alternative ownership models". In the end MassPort may be our best option, but it is not our only option and we have a fiduciary responsibility to market the airport to anyone who may be interested in ORH like Avports, National Express, etc. Imagine a hug ad in the Wall Street Journal advertising our AIRPORT FOR SALE!

Now for downgrade to General Aviation recommendation, let me make a slight adjustment.

If the City Manager truly believes that we can finalize the future of ORH in fiscal 2009 then we should hold off on this for the time being. Why? A potential suitor like MassPort may want and need a Part 129 certified airport. Bottom line, leave the decision up to the new owner or manager of ORH. In the very least, the City Council should request a report from the administration asking how much would be saved to downgrade, as recommended in the $100,000 IMG report.

Our best possible shot to commercial service is Florida. If you were an airline, you would want to target November-March as your peak months. If that is the case then you would need to have everything locked up by September.

If four months (October-November) from now, we:

  1. Do not have commercial service to Florida.
  2. The City Manager tells us prospects do not look good to sell or lease ORH.

We will have the numbers from the administration calculating the savings to downgrade to GA and decide. Who knows maybe by then we will even have the 20 Year Airport Master Plan.

Lastly I noticed that Winward is no longer listed on the Airport Website so evidently they did not exercies their lease option on the parcel that they won last year and had asked for an extension into this year.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Be it ever so humble" Bill. You love getting your name in the paper!!

Bill Randell said...

Anonymous:

You are right. I started the blog and the website on the airport to hopefully get my name in the paper.

Who knows maybe your name will be in the paper next week.

Bill

Anonymous said...

Speaking of T&G columnists, did anyone catch the column Mr. Clive McFuzzyMath wrote on Friday.

Seems another retired city employee (City Hospital) is whining about the new insurance plan for retirees.

The retiree claims in the column that she she worked 32 years at city hospital which means she probably started ther in the early to mid 1960's.

She further claims she made $61 a week for 60 hours. That comes out to $.81 cents per hour. In the 60's I was flipping burgers for $1.60 per hour starting pay. I even got a raise after 3 months. If I worked 60 hrs in a week, I earned $112.00 and the whiner was an X ray tech so I assumed she earned more than $1.60 hr.

Whiner also claimed "we worked out ass off" (right!) and even erected a monument at the former hospital to honor all the 100's of people who worked there. Who does she think she is a firefighter. Christ Almighty!

Clive needs to be a little more analytical before he puts his MicroSoftWord in gear and stop believing eveything that people tell him.

No one erected a monument to me at the burger joint and I even made the french fried from raw potatoes! They actually demo'ed the dam place !!!! Where's my monument.