Given Durango’s self-restricted economic base, the proposition that a new airport terminal will generate better air service, more local prosperity and a better environment is pure propaganda and clearly smacks of monument building.

Even if the projections are true, do we really want more and more visitors (a certain percentage of which will become permanent residents), traffic, air pollution, higher crime and a demand for city and county services when we can barely serve what we have now? When is enough, enough?

As for better service, when we had a small terminal, we had wider-body 737 service and when we built a bigger complex, it disappeared in favor of less comfortable planes. Neither the airlines nor the passengers care much about the size or makeup of the terminal as long as it serves a few basic functions.

Granted, the current complex could use some limited expansion, so why not take the cheaper route and move the private aircraft hangers and let those users help pay that cost, thereby reclaiming that area for less costly expansion of the current complex?

Is the required new fire station included in the cost? And when did low property taxes become an undesirable thing?

Jim Hanks

Durango