Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Luke air force base

Since the announcement that Luke Air Force base had made the cut to become one of the two bases that will host the new F-35 aircraft. Providing the base passes various studies concerning noise, use , pollution etc.
What a stupid set of reasons to base that kind of decision on. I've spent some time on the internet studying the history of the base. The growth of Phoenix and Glendale and I have come up with this conclusion.
The base was built in 1941, and has a fantastic past. It has played a major part in every conflict the U.S. has been involved in since WWII. That alone should be enough to keep the base open and make it worthy of housing a new fighter jet. Noise considerations should never become an issue. The base was there first. Common sense should tell people that if you build a house near an air-base. There will be noise. Now I am sure that the greed of the increase in tax base is what drove the city to allow housing additions to surround the base. But what amazes me is the thinking that taxes would be more important than the millions of dollars in income, medical care, fringe employment supplied because of the base that will help drive the Arizona economy. Luke air force base alone supplies 2.2billion dollars a year to Arizona's economy. It's estimated the the changover income brought to the local economy will be upwards of $125,million dollars.
I say buy all the offended home-owners houses, at fair market value, sometime at the end of the year when they have gone down another 1% a month. I think that is do-able, they can be condemned under the eminent domain provisions in the law. Then bulldoze them down. Problem solved.
Common sense should tell you not to build a house by an airport.

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