Council approves IAH fee, delays action on HPD helicopters
Last week, we wondered if Council might reconsider the big plans to expand Terminal B in light of airline industry merger mania. The answer, as reported by KHOU-11, is no:
Under a plan approved Wednesday by the Houston City Council, IAH will soon impose a $3 passenger facility fee if it’s approved by the FAA. Airport administrators said the approval process typically takes a few months.
Airlines would charge the fee when passengers book tickets that depart from or land at IAH. They would then pass the money on to the Houston Airport System. The funding would help pay for a $1.2 billion reconstruction of Terminal B and its parking garages.
KHOU also reports that Council today delayed action for a week on a plan to purchase new helicopters for HPD:
A proposal to buy six new choppers for roughly $17 million dollars was delayed a week on the request of Council Members Anne Clutterbuck and Pam Holm, each for different reasons.
Holm questioned whether the city needs to spend millions of dollars on relatively few vehicles, when there’s also a need for hundreds of new police cars and money to pay additional officers.
Clutterbuck said she is worried that purchasing six helicopters all at once will only create further problems for future administrations – because they would all presumably need to be replaced at the same time, ten years from now. She urged HPD and the city’s purchasing department to stagger such large purchases to avoid sudden changes in fleets.
[snip]
Currently at least one Houston Police Department helicopter is permanently grounded, and others can only fly during daylight hours. The two choppers the Department uses to train officers can only hold two people, can’t carry spotlights, and were purchased in 1975.
In fact, back in the 1970s at any given time, HPD had 16 helicopters ready to patrol. Today there are four.
This proposed purchase would bring that number up to 12.
In a city as large as ours, helicopters are an important policing tool, and HPD seems to have made a good case that it's time for significant fleet investment. Councilmember Holm is right, of course, that HPD also needs other equipment, not to mention funding to boost manpower. It's not clear, though, that it should be an either-or proposition. Policing is an essential service of government -- unlike trinkets. In a time of record revenues, the city should be able to fund essential services.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/23/08 10:39 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Sphere | Comments (12)
Previous Entry | Home | Next Entry
Trackback
Unfortunately, abusive spammers have forced us to disable incoming trackback pings. The Technorati link should list related posts. Feel free to drop us an email if you've linked a post and would like to let us know about it.
ADVERTISING
DISCLAIMER
All content © 2004-08, blogHOUSTON and the respective authors.
blogHOUSTON.net is powered by Nucleus.
Site design and Nucleus customization are by Kevin Whited.