Wednesday, July 2, 2003

The current Airport Authority should be reminded that a downward spiral would also be a "new direction" for Falcon Field.

What, pray tell, is "more community outreach?"

Jim Savage served on the Peachtree City Council (1982-85) during the explosive growth period of the city. This was a heady era when council members delineated and debated their various philosophies of how best to live in community.

Jim, along with Mayor FRED Brown, David Good, Jack Barrett and the late Howard Morgan actually discussed ideals and ways to implement them. Unlike the current council, they wasted neither their time nor anyone else's bickering over trivia.

It was only as a result of those debates that Falcon Field became anything other than a 50-foot-wide runway with a hump in the middle.

No one in this city has a better grasp than Jim Savage of the vision or the intricacies involved in transforming a vision into reality.

In order for all this to happen, I submit that Jim has spent more time at more Peachtree City-related meetings and get-togethers than the combined efforts of the three authority members who voted to fire him.

On the rare occasions I have attended a city council meeting in the past five years, I invariably run into Jim, and I imagine I could also find him at a host of other city events, were I to look.

I also suspect that between his ties to Eastern and his habit of getting to know the people who fly in and out of Falcon Field there aren't many general aviation pilots or flying aficionados that Jim doesn't know on a first-name basis. You'll never replace that personable one-on-one with a slick marketing campaign.

You can look the world over, read mounds of resumes and interview until grass grows on the runway but you will never find anyone who loves this city and has done as much for it as Jim Savage.

You'll never find anyone who is as detail-oriented, honest and just fun to be around as Jim Savage. You'll never find anyone who will work hundreds of hours, unpaid, just to make sure things are as you and he envision them.

I predict you will rue the day you opted for pie-in-the-sky instead of proven competence on the ground.

Viki Brigham

vbrigham@bellsouth.net

[Brigham is a former Peachtree City Airport Authority member.]