From the beginning, there were questions about building a fee-based customs facility at Martin County’s Witham Field. With free customs offices in Palm Beach and St. Lucie counties, skeptics wondered if anyone would pay to clear customs in Martin.
Sally Swartz
Martin’s Economic Development Council representatives, who chose a Galaxy Aviation official to do the numbers, touted the customs facility as a winner. So did airport business owners.
The building would go up at no cost to residents; federal and state grants would pay for 80 percent, with a 20 percent contribution from the local Airport Enterprise Fund. Fees from airport users and, more important, boaters, would pay operating costs.
The purpose of this project: Jobs, jobs, jobs, of course, and a big boost for airport businesses.
The Martin commission majority — Doug Smith, Patrick Hayes and Ed Ciampi, who took campaign contributions from airport businesses — gave it a thumbs up.
Then Airport Director George Stokus began researching the reality.
His progress report at Tuesday’s commission meeting tells a whole new story. The customs facility no longer is a job-producing economic development project. Now it’s an “airport enhancement” and an “international arrival facility at Witham Field.”
The financial free ride to build it no longer exists, if it ever did. The feds won’t give a dime to build it. The Florida Department of Transportation won’t give a cent if boaters use the facility. If it’s for aircraft only, the DOT might consider paying 50 percent, but not in the next five years.
Martin’s 50 percent, Mr. Stokus suggests, could come from the Airport Enterprise Fund. That fund, used to operate the airport, includes fees and grant money. But using grant money from the fund, critics say, may not be allowed.
None of this seems to bother Mr. Stokus, who bumped up building costs from about $800,000 to $1.25 million.
He hopes the Customs folks will change federal rules so boaters, which Martin officials hoped would contribute $200,000 a year toward operating the facility, can use it. Changing federal rules, however, can take years.
Commissioners Ed Fielding and Sarah Heard raised more questions. A survey of airport users, Commissioner Fielding said, shows a substantial number are unwilling to pay more to land in Martin. “The underlying support for the income projections,” he said, “is not there.”
“Our own research,” Commissioner Heard said, “tells us half of the people (identified as potential users of the facility) would not use it.” She said she opposes “a $1.5 million facility that costs $200,000 a year to operate for 500 users.”
Commissioner Smith said a survey showing airport users are unwilling to pay fees at a Martin customs facility isn’t accurate because of the way the question was asked.
Several residents, including Witham Airport Action Majority President B.D. “Dave” Shore, asked the commission to drop the project. “It’s a loser money-wise and not a project the community needs or wants.”
“We don’t have the money to build it,” he said later, “and we don’t have the money to staff it.”
So a budget-conscious county commission majority would have postponed the project or killed it.
Instead, Commissioners Hayes, Smith and Ciampi decided to move forward with plans to build the customs facility. All but Commissioner Smith pledged not to use county property tax money.
For now. That could change in an instant. In Martin, the commission majority rules, and these three men call all the shots.
Sally Swartz is a former member of The Post Editorial Board. Her e-mail address is sdswartz42@comcast.net
