Last night, the “Not for Sale” (anti-privatization) group sponsored a town hall meeting at the St. Louis Central Branch Library. The meeting was well attended, as you can see from the photo in the comments

I’m posting all of my notes here, given that this a critical community issue and that this “public” process is rife with secrecy. The entire process also reeks of conflicts of interest.

But tonight was a chance for the good guys to talk, and I learned a lot. Notably, none of tonight’s speakers was being paid to take the positions that they were taking. This is in stark contrast to positions being taken by members of the airport Working Group. None of the speakers criticized the current public airport management. Many went out of their way to compliment the way the airport commission is running the airport. And how could that be otherwise, based on the following statistics (reflecting events from July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2018):

• 29% increase in enplanments
• 6.2% more departures
• 20% decrease in cost per passenger
• 5.9% more overall passengers
• 30% debt paid off ($276 million) new line
• $6.68 million paid into the city’s general revenue fund.

The meeting started with an announcement by a representative of Congressman Lacy Clay. Congressman Clay supports a public vote regarding any privatization effort regarding the airport.

The next speaker was Dr. Ray Mundy, the Executive Director of the Airport Ground Transportation Association. Dr. Mundy stated the following: He has never seen a process like this in 40 years. For instance, $1 million is available to conduct a study of feasibility or privatization. The money is offered by the FAA. The working group didn’t even apply for this money, suggesting they don’t want to know what such a study would show. The current airport commission is well-managed, but the airport is old, and it needs a major overhaul. The current airport commission is on a good path. The new runway offers excellent capacity going forward.

The next speaker was Tony messenger, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Before this process began, Tony had coffee with a lobbyist who said that this process needs to be open. In an early column, he wrote that the City chose Grow Missouri (affiliated with Rex Sinquefield) to advise the City on the process. There was a contract with Grow to do this work. Lo and behold, Grow was chosen to run the Working Group. In other words, Grow chose Grow while the original contract was still in effect. This is a blatant conflict of interest, especially given that the Working Group would only be paid if privatization occurred. This provided an incentive for privatization rather than a neutral study. The recent anti-airport documentary film is evidence of this blatant conflict of interest.

The next speaker was Tyson Pruitt, who works with St. Louis Comptroller Darlene Greene, Ms. Green is a member of the Board of estimate, and she is also a member of the working group, a voting member. She has taken a clear position that she opposes privatization because the airport is doing well. Recently, air traffic has exceeded levels that it had not seen since 2003. The current deplanment fee of $8.73 is highly competitive compared to other airports around the country [See Mr. Pruitt’s comments below for correction regarding this number]. The City of St. Louis is in a good position to make use of real estate surrounding the airport (land that is part of the airport property). There is no need to privatize airport to develop this land. Most of this land will be unencumbered from debt in five years, and at that time, the City can develop this land to the benefit of the city and to the benefit of surrounding municipalities. Darlene Greene is not in favor of privatization. Comptroller Green supports a public vote.

The final speaker was Cara Spencer, who currently sits on the Board of Alderman for the City of St. Louis. She began by mentioning that the airport privatization program of the FAA was instituted in 1976, but only a handful of airports have attempted privatization out of the 457 major airports in the United States. None of these have been successful. Rather, they have all been disasters, causing the municipalities to be forced to buy back failed private airports. The Denver airport is a prime example. Denver privatized one of its airport terminals. When the company that was supposed be running the airport failed miserably, Denver was forced to buy back is terminal for $200 million. Alderwoman Spencer urges that whatever happens should be in the best interest of the taxpayers. Since 1956, the city has paid zero dollars for the airport. Lambert field is funded entirely by user fees and federal grants. These federal grants might not be available to a private entity that would attempt to run the airport as part of the privatization process. Further, the city of St. Louis receives about $7 million a year from the airport operations. The airport became indebted in order to expand to include a new runway in 2006. $590 million remains in that debt, but all of that is scheduled to be paid off in the next 5 to 7 years. At that point, the airport itself can develop that land. Current airport leadership is “phenomenal.”

After these presentations, the speakers took questions. Here are a few of their comments:

Tony messenger indicated that we don’t know what the consultants are doing. It is impossible to know what they are doing. The city refuses to give the RFQ’s (resumes) to the Post-Dispatch. We therefore don’t know the responses to the RFQ’s and we don’t even know how the City will judge the RFPs. The public is in the dark on this process, even though large amounts of money are being spent.

Cara Spencer indicated that she doesn’t know much about what is going on either, even though she is on the Board of Alderman. Any responsible project like this would have a Financial Model, but the City won’t produce such a model. Any responsible project would have a Risk Assessment Study (For instance, what would happen if the new private owner went bankrupt?). The City indicates it won’t do such a study, which is “troubling.” The Working Group is holding many meetings and most of these are closed.