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An exhaustive review of the proposed 99-year contract between the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority and the multinational firm of Cintra S.A. for control of the Niagara Falls International Airport has revealed a number of startling--and somewhat troubling--details not previously made public.
Among the revelations:
Congressman John LaFalce, who once practiced law himself, has read the document, and has not backed down from his early opposition to the proposed 99-year pact.
"Any suggestion that I have somehow changed my position would be incorrect," LaFalce told the Reporter. "There are still improvements on the lease that are needed."
One of LaFalce's chief objections has been that the lease contains no performance guarantees that would allow the NFTA to get out of the contract should Cintra fail to deliver on its promises. Under the lease, Cintra is not required to land one passenger or unload one piece of cargo at the airport over the term of the contract, which covers the whole of the next century.
LaFalce said he will be testifying further as to the exact nature of his opposition at 7 p.m. March 19, when the Federal Aviation Administration holds a public hearing on the deal at Niagara County Community College.
And he won't be the only one protesting the proposed pact.
"If they've got all this money, why do we need to be giving them $2.5 million?" said Niagara Falls City Councilwoman Barbara Geracitano. "Something's not right here."
Last week, Geracitano fired off a letter to the FAA to voice her concerns about what she calls "another sweetheart deal," and to request an additional public hearing be held in Niagara Falls.
"A lot of people here aren't going to be able to get out to NCCC," she said. "The city owned the airport at one time, and we're the ones who would be most affected by this."
Geracitano said she also is concerned about Cintra's plans to charge for parking at the airport, and wonders who will benefit from the company's stated desire to purchase property adjacent to the facility. Additionally, she said, more than $300 million in insurance coverage is required under the lease, which makes no provision for competitive bidding on the policies.
The airport issue is crucial to the future of the city, she added.
"The airport is probably the single most valuable asset the county has," Geracitano said. "To give it away, to actually pay a foreign corporation to take it, this stinks to high heaven."
John Prozeralik, who collected more than 20,000 signatures on petitions opposing the deal and who has spent a considerable sum of his own money fighting it, said passage of the Cintra pact would be the final nail in the coffin for Niagara Falls.
"George Maziarz said, 'Read the lease, read the lease.' Well, now I've read the lease, and it's even worse than I thought," he said.
"You can talk about casinos, tourism, whatever, but if you give up control of the airport--the key to bringing people in here--you've lost everything," he added. "The people of Niagara Falls have to stand up to this."
Prozeralik said he has been conducting his own talks with several European airlines. Package tours--arriving from Germany, Poland, France and Russia--could be landing at the airport within six months under his plan, if the NFTA simply would relinquish control and hand the facility over to the county, he said. Additionally, he has the financial backing to start a Falls-based "niche" airline that could be up and running in less than a year, he said.
By contrast, Cintra's own--presumably rosy--forecast predicts no passengers landing here whatsoever prior to 2004 at the earliest. Furthermore, the company actually is proposing to take people away from Niagara Falls, with charter flights to airports it controls in Mexico and the Caribbean.
Prozeralik said replacement value of the airport could be as high as $3 billion, and added that Cintra also will gain title to millions of dollars worth of heavy machinery, trucks and other equipment as part of its rent-free deal.
"(State Attorney General) Eliot (Spitzer) needs to be brought in on this," he said. "How can the NFTA give something to a foreign government that the taxpayers here have paid for?"
Both LaFalce and Prozeralik also have expressed concerns based on national security issues. Cintra's parent company is based in Spain, one of the few European nations that is not a member of NATO. In fact, the Spanish government on several occasions has refused permission for American military planes to fly in its airspace during conflicts in the Middle East and the former Yugoslavia.
Just how will the new Spanish national landlords at the airport treat the Air Force's 914th Tactical Airlift Wing and the Air National Guard's 107th Air Refueling Wing, both of which are based there?
"I've read in the paper where some of the politicians have said the military is in favor of this deal," Prozeralik said. "I'd like to know which general, which colonel, said they were in favor of it." In a Sept. 6 Reporter interview, LaFalce said Air Force brass privately had expressed concern about the deal.
"If Cintra comes in, what will be their relationship with the Air Force?" he said. "I can tell you, I've talked to a number of people in the Air Force who are very pleased with the questions I've been asking."
Finally, despite repeated denials by the company, many still wonder about the relationship between the Cintra S.A. proposing to take over the airport and the Cintra S.A. that controls two airlines in Mexico and is owned largely by the Mexican government.
"Do you mean to tell me there's one Cintra S.A. that owns two airports in Mexico and another Cintra S.A. that owns two airlines in Mexico, and that they're not related in any way?" one local businessman asked. "Come on. I was born in the morning, but it wasn't yesterday morning."