ILLINOIS INDEPENDENT AIRPORTS There are 122 public use airports listed in the Illinois airport directory. Fifty-four of these airports, or slightly less than half of the facilities that are available to anyone flying around our state or through our state, are privately owned. These fifty-four airports are kept open and maintained for the use of anyone, at anytime, for any reason — Business, Pleasure, Emergency — free of charge. We are privately owned public use airports. We are a significant contribution to General Aviation, to the communities we serve, as well as to the state. I represent an organization of these privately owned airports, and that organization is called the "Illinois Council of Independent Airports." Our purpose is to address problems that are common to us and to provide a collective voice in matters that concern our part of the world. Our airports for the most part provide the same function as any publicly owned airport: Takeoff and landing surfaces; airplane parking and housing; services such as fuel, repairs, food, transportation, instruction and rental. Facilities and services vary depending upon the market and entrepreneurship. But we are all classified and regulated by the state and federal regulations the same as all public airports. The basic difference is: Privately owned airports have no access to public funds of any source, and in all cases in Illinois, are taxed by the local taxing bodies. A recent attempt to change the law to provide some relief from taxes was unsuccessful because the Illinois constitution limits and defines who can have tax exemption. What I find interesting in the examination of the demographics of Illinois airports is that we are not in any kind of competition to one another. Rather we are all in the process of providing the same kinds of benefits to whatever community we are close to. Even in the Chicago area where our numbers are the highest, we are scattered wide enough to be of no competition to one another or to any other community service. What we provide in the way of benefits to a community no one else can provide. The competition is not with each other but with economics. Unlike public owned airports, we do not have access to funds that enable them to comply with regulations and bureaucratic demands, as well as cope with economic downswings. Most owners of public use private airports are not driven by profits, but by the love of flying in all of its aspects. This is not to say that there is no profit motive or that there are no profits. Only a few of us are that foolish. But consider the amount of land and buildings and time and effort that an airport takes. This is true of the majority of all airports. But in the case of publicly owned airports, the economic impact, or at least the economic promise of an airport to a community, can Justify little or no profit if the whole community benefits in other ways. The private owner must sustain financial burdens and losses and unreimbursed costs for other reasons, and that is usually because his, or her, or their whole life has been that airport and flying, and it would be a shame to lose it. Our number one concern is to have our local communities share that same appreciation. To perceive us as an asset rather than a nuisance. To realize that the community loses if the airport goes. The airport does not exist just for the use of an exclusive few in an interest group. A business man can fly into one of our airports, conduct a million dollars worth of business and fly out. It does not cost him one cent to use that airport, but the community benefits. Most communities are becoming aware of the value of waterways in and around the community. Public funds are spent in protecting and stocking game, providing boat ramps, making improvements to the banks and other ways to encourage usage. We are a navigable strip of land that can bring people from all over the country to our communities. Some of these people may come with money to spend, or even better, they may come with business to conduct. Our land might well fit into a community disaster February 1995 / Illinois Municipal Review / Page 23 plan as a staging area for evacuation or surveillance, and for that reason it could be in the best interest of a community to have us there. We play an important part in producing the pilot base. Most pilots have had some early experience with fields like ours. It may have been a first ride, or a solo, or a place for unhindered practice takeoffs and landings. We have been a place to build time to move on into commercial or military flying and probably most important, the day-to-day flying that keeps a pilot current and safe. We are privately owned, and therefore it is hard to see ways to help us. We need to be perceived as the asset we are. Zoning and planning boards could at least look out for us and avoid some of the problems that tall structures and residential encroachment bring to us, while providing zoning buffers that would place business and industrial areas near that can not only tolerate but benefit from aviation. We would not expect our profit centers to be aided by public funds. But those areas that are not profit centers and are used by the public could be included in a plan of some kind. (If only to have a snow plow make a couple of passes down our runway after a snow!) We get no landing fees or user fees from the public that lands or takes off on our runways. Tie downs and terminal area and customer parking is a different thing. Local signage that identifies an airport is an indication that a community knows it is there and proud to have it. Apple River Airport in the far north and west part of Illinois, far from any market center, recently experienced some creative financial support when Asher Foster was thinking of closing down because of insurmountable expenses in bringing the airport to acceptable standards. The county found a grant of over $10,000. Eagle Ridge Golf Course gave them a golf day and a car dealer offered a car for a hole-in-one. The gambling boat in East Dubuque gave the proceeds for a day. All in a fund raising effort to put a new hard surface on the runway. If a community sees the value of the airport, there are ways to encourage and support a struggling venture that is dedicated to the public benefit. A municipality may want to think of acquiring the facility near them. Our corporation would be happy to relinquish our burden for the investment we have made as individuals, if we knew the airport would remain. Schaumburg, which recently became public, is a great example of this concept. Our numbers are dwindling as land becomes too expensive and owners grow too old and tired to fight. We are privately owned, but it would be a shame to lose us. [Video tape of Mr. Moon's presentation can be obtained by writing: National-Louis University, Airport Enhancement Project, 1000 Capitol Dr., Wheeling, IL 60090. Or call Joe Pate: 708-465-0575X5710.] page 24 / Illinois Municipal Review / February 1995
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