Hit and Run In Keysville

Dear Editor:

On Friday, March 7, 2014 between 1:00 and 1:30 p.m. in the Food Lion parking lot, someone hit our silver 2005 Dodge Dakota in the tailgate and didn’t have the decency to leave a note, you just left. We have only had this truck one week. Insurance is high enough but people like you make it hard for honest people like us. Please take your part of the responsibility in this. Until you come forth you are no better than a crook. Somebody saw you.

 Vicki and Terry Elder, Keysville, Va.

Editor’s note: If anyone has information about this incident, please contact Averett Jones at The Southside Messenger, 736-0152.

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Dear Editor:

A somewhat heated controversy has recently erupted in the Farmville area concerning the deteriorating conditions at the Farmville Regional Airport. Since Charlotte County is one of the counties within the economic activity area served by that airport, I hope you will consider publishing this Letter to the Editor as a public service to your readers. The economic study to which it refers illustrates graphically the value of a local airport to a locality in which it is located.

In 2011 the Virginia Department of Aviation commissioned an independent study of the economic impact of the state’s general aviation (non-military) airports. The study found that Farmville’s airport created, directly or indirectly, 44 jobs with a payroll of $700,000 and created economic activity of $2.38 million.

When you look at those figures, you have to wonder where those 44 people work, where they spend the $700,000 they earn, and what kind of “economic activity” the airport creates that’s worth $2.38 million.

It’s difficult to wade though the jargon in the report, but the bottom line is that the jobs, payroll, and economic activity are based on the geographic area served by the airport. In the case of Farmville Regional Airport, that includes the Town of Farmville, and the counties of Amelia, Appomattox, Buckingham, Charlotte, Cumberland, and Prince Edward.

Of those, which of them gets most of the $2.38 million in economic activity? Certainly nobody flies into the Farmville airport so they can go to an upscale restaurant in Amelia, Appomattox, Buckingham, Charlotte, Cumberland, or Prince Edward. Farmville is the obvious final destination if food is the purpose of the visit or even incidental to the visit.

And how many stores, of any kind, are there in Amelia, Appomattox, Buckingham, Charlotte, Cumberland, or Prince Edward that bring fly-in traffic? Where are the good stores? In Farmville, of course, with Green Front leading the list of destinations. And how many of these fly-ins decide to drive over to Appomattox Courthouse or Sprouses Corner to a motel when five motels are sprinkled about in Farmville? Longwood is within the town and Hampden-Sydney only 15 minutes away; Parents and other relatives use Farmville Municipal Airport. And when they eat, shop, or sleep, it’s in Farmville.

It’s obvious that the overwhelming bulk of that $2.38 million in annual economic activity takes place in the Town of Farmville. It seems to me that the merchants in Farmville, the Farmville Chamber of Commerce, and not just the Herald, ought to be out in front demanding that the shabby condition of the hangars and other deteriorated conditions and equipment be corrected and that the airport is properly manned and attractive to people who fly in with money to spend. After all, the surrounding counties don’t get, figuratively speaking, 15 cents worth of the $2.38 million in business activity the airport brings in. It’s no wonder those counties don’t want to help financially. And it’s a real shame that none of them seem to see its financial potential as a magnet for industrial development.

Your editorial says the Town spends “on ballpark average, $200,00 to $300,000 annually.” That translates to average spending of from $547.95 to $821.92 a day, each and every 8-hour day, including weekends and holidays. I’m no accountant, and I’m not at the airport every day, but those figures are impossible for me to accept. A line-by-line breakdown/explanation of those expenditures, and not just the condensed summaries available on the town website, would be both enlightening and revealing.

Farmville Regional Airport is a diamond in the rough. The Town of Farmville and its businesses have a vested interest in the success of the airport. It’s existing economic benefits won’t continue, and its financial potential isn’t going to come about when it’s bad-mouthed, unsupported by those who profit by its existence, and allowed to deteriorate and literally fall to pieces.

Those who profit from it need to step up to the plate and protect their interests.

Dick Carden, Cumberland

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To The Editor:

Scientists predict that in about 100,000 years, our sun will burn out…….and VDOT will have to finish the Rte. 15 widening in the dark!

But seriously, folks…..long ago and far away, I was a member of a U.S. Army Combat Engineer unit specializing in horizontal (road) construction. Using equipment left over from WW II, we could complete a half-mile of gravel road in a single day. Of course, that day often lasted 16 hours, but it was still pretty quick work.

VDOT has been working to complete less than a quarter-mile of road for nearly a year. Is there an end in sight?

John Jamieson, Farmville