Airport Mismanagement Observations

[MoonlightVFR]

Have you experienced notable airport mismanagement deeds?

Are you suspicious of management's intentions? Can we as pilots help airport owner/managers build a positive attitude toward their role in GA?

My home airport recently wrote the FAA , informing them of their intention to PERMANENTLY turn off the runway lights. They received advice from a consulting engineer that they could do by a simple NOTAM. City sponsor of St Clair K39 advised FAA in writing that since the original grant that paid for the runway lights was over 20 years old they have every right to shut off lights.

I have a feeling that there exists a long laundry list of actions against the aviation community that do not want to dwell on.


Regards

[GAHorn]

The city of Lakeway, TX was built and developed in the early '70's, surrounding it's prime attractions...the airport with adjacent taxiway homes, nestled in it's golfcourse fairways, and it's marina on Lake Travis.

After the airport-connected homes were constructed and sold to pilots, and the rest of the community development was completed, ...a newly retired Fortune 500 exec. moved down to beautiful Texas and bought a home on a hill on the extended centerline of the runway. THEN he discovered that airplanes would takeoff and arrive diretly over his house, which being situated on a 200' hill, ...was only a few hundred feet below their flightpaths.
Being wealthy (a requirement of living in Lakeway) he ran for mayor of the small township, and then had the city tear out the runway lighting system, and signed an ordinance that issued fines for anyone "starting or operating" an aircraft engine during the hours of darkness.
About two dozen homeowners who bought into that community years before he moved down from New Jersey cannot operate their airplanes unless the sun is up. The rest of the community loves him, and the airport homes lost half their value.
They can't sell them easily to pilots, and non-pilots don't want to live in a home attached by a "street" to an airplane runway.
If I lived there, I"d be in favor of paving over the fairways and filling in the cups with cement, just to see how he felt about that.