PEROT’S 200-YEAR ITCH

FOAT WUTH Airports are forever. At least that’s what ROSS PEROT JR. seems to think. When the city of Fort Worth asked for bids to manage the new Alliance industrial airport north of Fort Worth, Perot’s Pinnacle Air Services Inc. requested a 200-year contract. The Fort Worth city staff quickly whittled the contract down to 100 years before it went to council, but the council choked on that one too and slapped it down to 30 years.

“Oh, I just guess they wanted all they could get,” says Fort Worth City Council member steve murrin with a chuckle. “They’re just good business people.” But what’s good business for Perot isn’t necessarily good business for Fort Worth. The Federal Aviation Administration is paying for a large portion of the airport, and the law says that federal money can’t be spent on private ventures. A lease as long as Perot wanted would have given him too much private control over a public property, and the FAA says that would force the agency to cancel its funding.

Perot’s motive for asking for the super-long contract may have come from ROSS PEROT SR., who has said that the landing strips at Alliance could easily be lengthened to accommodate the new space plane now being developed by NASA-something that almost certainly wouldn’t happen within the next 30 years.

But Perot Jr. shrugs off the space plane idea and says he was simply trying to protect his business interests. “Everything we do out there [at Alliance] is long-term,” he says. “We’re spending $10 million of our funds and the only collateral we have is the ground lease. So I wanted to make it for as long as possible- that’s why the 200. But the city said, ’Gee, nobody can do 200.’”

Perot’s company is building the administration building, airplane hangars, and refueling facilities on 20 acres at the 418-acre airport. “Fort Worth doesn’t have the money to build all that,” says Perot, “but we’ll do it. because we’re betting on the future of that airport.”