Local opponents of the F-35 are throttling up their campaign by petitioning for a cutoff of construction funds for Burlington International Airport if it agrees to host the fighter jets.
Activists began gathering signatures during Town Meeting Day voting today in support of a 2014 ballot initiative stating that “no more than one dollar may be spent for construction, equipment and improvement” at the airport in the event F-35s are based there.
Bristol attorney Jim Dumont, speaking on behalf of the plane’s opponents, argues that Burlington voters have the power to slash the airport’s budget. He bases that claim on a section of state law that requires local voters to approve the budget of a municipally owned airport. Burlington has apparently flouted this law for decades by not making airport funding contingent on direct approval by city voters, Dumont said at a news conference Tuesday morning at the Mater Christi School polling place.
City attorney Eileen Blackwood says Dumont has it wrong.
In a statement emailed to reporters on the evening prior to the press event, Blackwood said, “Burlington’s city charter trumps the general state law on this issue.” Burlington’s charter vests budget-making authority solely with the city council, she notes. Airport spending therefore could not be directly blocked by the city’s voters, Blackwood says.
Dumont (pictured) responded on Tuesday that it’s Blackwood who’s got it wrong.
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Symbols matter and the Air Force is watching.
Right now the Air Force has acknowledged errors in scoring Burlington,
it’s delayed its decision twice,
it’s stonewalling on withholding public information,
it’s a defendant in a Freedom of Information federal lawsuit,
and the F-35 doesn’t work that well, and costs too much.
Eventually the whole house of cards SHOULD collapse,
but that doesn’t mean it will —
not without continued pressure.
Agreed. The stalling and roadblocking by the Air Force may give people just what they will need to sue. By denying the citizens rights to due process (like the FOIA requests), it may help nudge open the door to litigation.