Making a federal case about Luke AFB's future

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Arizona
ARIZONA REPUBLIC
Making a federal case about Luke AFB's future
Jon Talton
Feb. 1, 2004 12:00 AM

The latest illness to afflict the Salt River Valley is Luke Hypocrisy
Syndrome.

We find it in officials who claim to support the base while salivating
over permit fees from tract houses that move ever closer to its runways.

It can be diagnosed in business leaders who sign on to "save Luke"
campaigns while knowing that speculators have been flipping land around
the base for years, waiting for the right time to plot subdivisions.

The disease is closely associated with the I Want a Pony Flu. A symptom
of this debilitating malady is a wistful desire to keep Luke, but
refusing for decades to do what was necessary to preserve agriculture in
a protective corridor around the base.

They want a pony - runway development and runaway development. If wishes
were F-16s, we all would fly.

What makes me sick is that anyone paying attention knows that Luke is
not long for Greater Phoenix, at least in its present form. Decades of
inaction and double-dealing have ensured that. But we have done nothing
to ease the loss to the regional economy.

Luke is the world's premier fighter training base, but it's also an
anachronism. In World War II, Phoenix was a small farm town of clear
skies and open spaces, an ideal place to train pilots. Those advantages
have declined as the city has spread out, and particularly as suburbs
neighboring the base have made sprawl a near requirement.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0201talton01.html

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