Dukes County commissioners voted on Wednesday to appoint Don Ogilvie and Kristin Zern, both of West Tisbury, to the airport commission, replacing commissioners Beth Toomey and Norman Perry. The terms of both Ms. Toomey and Mr. Perry expire this month. The new appointees will assume their new positions after they are sworn in at the Dukes County Courthouse.
Mr. Perry, who has served on the airport commission for over a decade, applied for reappointment but was not chosen. Ms. Toomey declined to apply for reappointment.
Temporary acting chair Bob Rosenbaum applauded the appointments in a phone conversation with The Times Friday morning.
“They’re very good choices,” Mr. Rosenbaum said, adding that he doesn’t know either of them personally.
He said that Mr. Ogilvie’s financial background will be particularly helpful for the airport commission as it organizes and maintains its records.
“I think one of our challenges is to get the airport’s financial reporting into the 20th century, never mind a 21st century state,” he said. “When you don’t know what your status is financially until three months after the year is closed, it’s not the ideal situation. He’ll really be able to integrate all the various financial-related components.”
Mr. Rosenbaum said he is looking forward to Ms. Zern joining the board.
“I’ve heard very good things about her,” he said.
Mr. Rosenbaum took a moment to reflect on his departing colleagues, Mr. Perry and Ms. Toomey.
“There were certainly some trying times, shall we say, during especially the last bunch of years,” Mr. Rosenbaum said of Mr. Perry. “I like Norm personally. I was just concerned about his feelings that he expressed in his interview with the county that somehow the county should be overseeing the airport so ‘we didn’t get into trouble.’”
Mr. Rosenbaum said that such oversight belongs to the airport commissioners.
“Beth Toomey provided some good expertise,” Mr. Rosenbaum said. “She was also there in that period with the new contract, which we had a difference of opinion on, but that was before my time of being a commissioner because I was approved right before [I] was an official commissioner.”
Mr. Rosenbaum said such conflicts are now in the past and that he is looking forward.
“I think over the last year we have really brought the airport to a state of really, a level of openness, and moving in a very positive direction,” he said.
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