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Airport issues

EDITOR:

I’m writing in response to your January 23 article, “Airport’s Past and Future Surfaces for County Board,” to rebut Andrea Nummilien’s baseless claim, made during the January 21 meeting of the Delta County Board of Commissioners (CBOC), that I committed a “federal security breach” by permitting Attorney Scott Graham access to sensitive security information (SSI) prior to him obtaining the proper clearance. According to Ms. Nummilien, this incident supposedly occurred during his county-launched investigation into the events surrounding her time as airport manager.

I can assure your readers that Ms. Nummilien’s accusation is patently false. During my time as airport manager, I fully observed and followed all federal security regulations, including coordinating closely with the TSA to provide Attorney Graham with the clearance needed to handle and review SSI. Moreover, I had absolutely no role in releasing any airport records or documents to Mr. Graham that contained SSI. Furthermore, apart from submitting to a phone interview and scheduling similar interviews for staff, I played no part in the conduct or administration of Attorney Graham’s investigation.

I would additionally like to address the unfounded inference that I was somehow part of a vast conspiracy to “besmirch” Andrea Nummilien’s reputation. On the contrary, I have repeatedly gone on record sharing my frustration with the lack of oversight and accountability at the airport, including the deafening silence of the Airport Advisory Board (AAB). If anything, the only issue I ever took with Ms. Nummilien was the circumstances under which she left the airport; that’s to say without providing meaningful notice days prior to a major inspection, which she previously acknowledged. In my opinion, any other problems that airport suffered from, or continues to endure, are the joint responsibility of management and the AAB.

Considering my recent departure from the airport, I expect Ms. Nummilien will attempt to form and propagate a revisionist narrative over the coming months that I will preemptively address here. I anticipate her trying to convince the public that there were never any major problems at the airport; that I instead embellished matters because I was part of a political cabal bent on impugning her. To that, I would remind everyone of the following: First, I have never been personally or politically involved with any member of the CBOC, let alone the three former commissioners with whom she continues to feud. Second, since leaving the Airport, Ms. Nummilien has only had access to half the story. Her $800-worth of FOIA documents do not capture the information exchanged during the countless conversations and meetings I held with various inspectors and stakeholders my first four months on the job.

Anyone who denies that Delta County Airport was in danger of potentially facing serious repercussions, due to past inconsistencies with its regulatory obligations, is either ill-informed or unwilling to accept the truth. In closing, however, I will offer that the surest way to repeat past mistakes is to deny that they ever occurred in the first place.

Robert Ranstadler

Escanaba

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