A year and a half after slipping $6-million into the state budget for an emergency facility at his hometown airport, House Speaker Ray Sansom led a hastily arranged meeting with local officials to explain how they might use it.

The meeting, held Dec. 10, came four days after the St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee bureau reported that the airport building was originally proposed by a friend of Sansom's, Jay Odom, a developer who wanted to park his jets in a taxpayer-funded hangar.

Officials deny the meeting was damage control. "It was to lay the groundwork of how the building was going to be used," said Tuffy Dixon, chief of the Destin Fire Control District.

But some critics, who say there is no burning need for an emergency operations center at the airport, question the events. "It's CYA time," said former Destin Mayor Ken Beaird. "They got caught and now they're trying to justify … an aircraft hangar." (story here)

*