Yet more shovel-ready busy-work funded by taxpayers, discovered by the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota and Watchdog.org:
St. Cloud Regional Airport touts lots of amenities on its website—a café, ATM, free wi-fi, free parking and a $5 million completely renovated terminal whose capacity went up dramatically from 30 to 200 travelers. There’s also a new $750,000 passenger boarding bridge secured with federal stimulus funds to keep travelers out of the elements while catching a flight. One asset, however, the newly renovated airport notably lacks—commercial flights and passengers….
Currently, an average of about one charter flight a month with 130 or so passengers uses the eerily empty 9,000 square foot glass-fronted facility. Potential passengers checking the airport’s website are notified there’s “no commercial air service” available. Delta Connection flights between St. Cloud and Minneapolis were grounded at the end of 2009 due to weak customer demand. Both national rental car agencies pulled out of their airport offices months ago.
As efficient as government is, I am sure they can turn on a dime and convert it into something useful — like a giant greenhouse!
Seems like I’ve heard about this somewhere else…