March 25, 2008 04:00 am
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There is no reason to be discouraged over news that Plattsburgh Aeronautical Institute will be delayed a year in opening. Signals have been mixed lately on the future of the school, and a year's delay has some uninformed observers nervous.
Whenever timetables for significant projects are adjusted, the public tends to begin to lose confidence -- sometimes for good reason, sometimes not. When two recent downtown Plattsburgh projects didn't happen on time, the public began to get antsy: The Gateway building on the corner of Durkee and lower Broad Street is up and running, but the proposed hotel on the waterfront appears to be abandoned, at least for now.
Plattsburgh Aeronautical Institute was due to begin operation next fall, but an announcement last week moved the opening back to 2009.
The reason for such intense concern about the institute is that it seems to offer a cork against what Sen. Hillary Clinton and others have called upstate New York's "brain drain," referring to an exodus of young people because there is little to induce them to stay here.
Too often, students graduate from high school and go on to college, never to return. After college, jobs await elsewhere; the opportunities they wish were close to home don't exist, unless they are in law, teaching or a small handful of other occupations.
An education in the field of aircraft maintenance could be that factor that keeps graduates in the region for good.
Plattsburgh Aeronautical Institute has already been given assurances that airports and other employers in upstate New York and Vermont would be eager for its graduates. This is a perfect situation, in which a curriculum can be established to meet needs of employers already in business. It's hard to set up a school without ready hiring opportunities, and it's equally hard to attract employers without having a skilled labor pool. Providing both simultaneously is ideal.
Plattsburgh Aeronautical suffered a significant setback when it learned its expected quarters at PARC had fallen through because of a government technicality that said its property could not be conveyed for less than market value. The school had hoped to obtain the property for $1.
The people in charge of the institute hope that that obstacle will be overcome with a $2 million grant from Empire State Development Corp. That would give the school enough money to buy the CommutAir buildings at the old Clinton County Airport along with necessary accouterments.
The hope, of course, is that Laurentian Aerospace will still settle on PARC with its hundreds of jobs created, any of which could mesh with the institute's aims.
A great deal has already gone into the institute's planned establishment. A delay of a year does not derail it now.
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