Declared dead years ago, but still alive and $pending

Regional airport model out of money

Business and political leaders backing a Lincoln County regional airport — which might have forced Yeager Airport to close — repeatedly cited the economic success of the Global TransPark in Kinston, N.C.

But today, Global TransPark is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, according to an audit report released Wednesday by North Carolina State Auditor Leslie W. Merritt Jr.

The audit concluded the Global TransPark Authority does not have the money to pay off $35.1 million in long-term debts, including $32.1 million owed to the North Carolina Escheat Fund, a pool of unclaimed cash in the state treasury.

That creates a “substantial doubt about the authority’s ability to continue as a going concern,” concludes the audit completed in November by a Raleigh, N.C.-based accounting firm.

If the TransPark Authority files for bankruptcy, the audit added, it might also have to repay $18.1 million it received from the Federal Aviation Administration.

“During the debate about the regional airport here in West Virginia, its supporters would say, ‘Look at what the TransPark did for economic development and air service in North Carolina,’” said Rick Atkinson, Yeager Airport’s director, on Friday. “We said then it was going to be a failed project.”

Atkinson said Global TransPark was “sold to the public with smoke and mirrors.”

“The people of North Carolina invested money from their unclaimed property account with the promise it would be repaid,” he said. “Now, it looks like that money is gone forever.”

The North Carolina project was created in 1991 as a public/private partnership. Its Web page, featuring flags of the United States and China, claims: “It’s a business park, at the right place at the right time.”

Jennifer Russo, a Global TransPark spokeswoman, said in a press statement that the project is still viable. Business tenants now employ 361 people, while the TransPark Authority itself employs 18.

“The authority has very positive support from the state [North Carolina] and its many partners,” reads the TransPark statement. “There is no contemplation the agency will declare bankruptcy. The project continues to gain momentum, and the agency will continue to ... aggressively market the TransPark and pursue new prospects.”

“What a mistake that would have been. If the TransPark couldn’t work in the business climate in North Carolina, how would it have worked here?” he said. “It would have been a tar pit. We would have lost Yeager Airport, one of the most important economic engines in the state. We would also have lost the 130th Air National Guard. We were correct.”

Plans for the Lincoln County airport officially died in August 2004, when the FAA stated it would cost the government more money to build the new airport than it would save taxpayers.

http://www.sundaygazettemail.com/section/News/2008010537