Share Your 2 Cents on Airport Possibility

Got an opinion on the future of Willow Grove air base?

Forums, in Horsham, Norristown - and in cyber space - abound.

On Friday and Saturday, the Horsham Land Reuse Authority and its , will hold another round of public meetings. Held at , the sessions are aimed at finding the best uses for the 892-acre plot. 

Dubbed a community planning charrette, the two-day session features two identical Friday sessions – one from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and another from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. – to enable participants to disburse into breakout groups to review everything from the site’s assets and constraints to major land use.

Then, on Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon, RKG will regroup to discuss information from Friday’s meetings, review site factors, constraints, land uses and more. The public is welcome to join RKG through noon. From noon to 4 p.m., the consultants, in a closed-door work session, will put together a power point presentation, which will be delivered to the public from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.

And, like previous HLRA meetings, which drew hundreds of residents, the public – and its opinions – is welcome. Such a large turnout is expected that the HLRA, in one of its latest e-mail alerts, asked attendees to carpool if possible.

Bill Randel, a resident of 57 years and regular at HLRA meetings, got a jumpstart on voicing his opinions during Wednesday’s Horsham Township Council meeting in which he chided the council for what he claimed was a “knee jerk reaction” to oppose future use of the 8,000-foot-long runway. 

“The silent majority are we older people who see uses for that runway,” Randel said. “Doing away with that runway is going to be expensive. It’s not a bright idea to destroy something that’s perfectly good." 

In reality, as the council pointed out, the governing body has no official say in the site’s redevelopment or whether , or the will be permitted to operate an airport, as each had proposed. It is the HLRA, and later, the federal government, that will ultimately approve the site’s redevelopment plan. 

“(The HLRA) is out there exploring the options seeing what will be the best fit,” said Horsham Council President Mark McCouch, who, along with the governing body,Shar adopted a resolution opposing future runway use. “We’ve been encouraging people to come out one way or the other.”

And people can come out and be heard again on June 15 as the Montgomery County Commissioners hold a special meeting at 9:30 a.m. with the sole purpose of hearing public opinion on whether the existing airfield should continue as an airport.

Horsham Township Manager Bill Walker said word of that meeting came as a “surprise,” particularly because he said he had coordinated with the Montgomery County Planning Commission to hold its June 15 meeting, also at 9:30 a.m., at the Horsham Township municipal building. Following the hour-long meeting, Walker said the board would take a tour of the base.

Walker said he intends to see if either the commissioners meeting or the planning commission meeting could be rescheduled.

“I’d like to go to both, but I can’t be at both,” said Walker, who also serves as the HLRA’s secretary.

Besides meetings, yet another way to communicate sentiments about the base’s future is through online mediums. A grassroots group of about 500 residents launched www.noairportinhorsham.org about two months ago and have distributed roadside signs throughout Horsham.

Other sites, including pro-airport site www.savewillowgrove.org and www.reusethebase.com double as forums for the community to share thoughts.

Joe Heffernan, owner of Babylon Business Campus, adjacent to the base, has said he’s open to the possibility of an airport. The former Horsham resident, who now lives in Collegeville, said he launched Reuse The Base to let everyone have a say – at least on his site – about the base’s future.

“I let both sides post,” Heffernan said. “I started as a forum for open discussion.”