Candidates apply for airport board

Almost-pilot among contenders

CHAPEL HILL -- The jockeying has begun to get seats on the new airport authority that will oversee the replacement of UNC-Chapel Hill's Horace Williams Airport.

The first candidates for the 15-member board include a former politician, a former political candidate, an almost-pilot and a real estate investment director.

The authority will be formed by UNC-CH and the UNC Health Care System, which will appoint four members each. The leaders of the state House and Senate will appoint one member each, and local governments will appoint a total of five.

The first people who have put their names up for consideration by local governments offer a range of perspectives.

Former Chapel Hill Town Council member Joe Capowski says he is concerned about the authority's "too-great authority," which includes the power of eminent domain, or the acquisition of of private property for public use.

"Though I spent 21 years on the faculty of the med school, I do not believe that a UNC airport is the all-important need for the med school, the UNC hospitals and health care in North Carolina," Capowski wrote the Town Council. "Rather, an airport must be viewed in the context of the county and towns."

Will Raymond, a former candidate for town council, called the state's granting the authority the power of eminent domain "a terrible mistake by our legislature.

"Setting this precedent, for reasons good or bad, will probably make policy interactions with UNC-CH more difficult in days to come," he wrote the Orange County commissioners. "Essentially, the legislature has issued UNC a huge hammer ... that I believe should be reserved exclusively to elective government."

Still, Raymond said he hoped to serve on the authority to help craft the best possible solution.

Russell Day, who has 85 flight training hours and wants the Carrboro seat, sees the airport as a potential economic engine for the broader community.

"The university uses it as a private airport. It's not," said Day, who has worked at different airports for 10 years, fueling, moving and cleaning planes. "It's an asset to all the citizens of the state.

"It's a part of the transportation infrastructure," Day explained. "This is a landlocked area. If you don't have the airport in the mix, you pretty much hobble yourself."

Gordon Merklein, vice chairman of the Orange Water and Sewer Authority, is an investments director with a real estate investment trust based in Raleigh.

His professional background is in planning, site selection and economic development, he wrote the county. "I worked for several years with a professional planning consulting firm planning and siting major infrastructure projects and more recently commercial real estate investments."

University officials have said they need to close the airport before opening the first building on the future Carolina North campus. The board of trustees approved a design for that building, the Innovation Center, last week.