Name Change Grounded at Regional Airport?

Thursday, February 16, 2012

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The board that operates the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport likely won't be moving forward anytime soon on a proposal to change the airport's name.

"I don’t anticipate there will be any discussion in the immediate future about the name change," said Scott Lewis, vice chairman of the Western Reserve Port Authority, which operates the Vienna Township airport.

At last month's meeting of the port authority, YNGAir Partners, an organization formed to support the airport, unveiled the results of a survey it conducted late last year regarding a potential name change. Of those surveyed, 63% favored renaming the airport and the top choice for a new name was Northeast Ohio Regional Airport, which got 36% of the vote.

That name, however, is no longer an option.

The Ashtabula Star-Beacon reported Feb. 10 that the Ashtabula County Airport has begun the process of adopting Northeast Ohio Regional Airport as its name. The Ashtabula airport authority voted last month to change the Denmark Township airport's name, which must also be approved by state officials and the Federal Aviation Administration, according to the story. The airport has set up a Facebook page and twitter account using the new name, and has filed it with the Ohio secretary of state and the FAA, according to the newspaper.

In January, the Western Reserve Port Authority voted down a proposal, 5-3, to begin the process of changing the airport's name. Members cited the need to get input from Mahoning and Trumbull counties, the port authority's funding partners, and the port authority's executive director, Rose Ann DeLeon, suggested that consideration of a potential name change be part of the upcoming strategic planning process.

During a phone interview Wednesday afternoon, Lewis, who clarified that he was not speaking on the board's behalf but on his own, said he didn't think there was a "majority consensus" among the board's members to support a name change. "And there's a belief that there are many other important matters for the port authority board to consider; the name change, at this point, is a distraction," he added.

An opponent of changing the airport's name, Lewis reiterated Wednesday he would have supported a name change that might have included Sharon, Pa. He also repeated his opinion that the Mahoning Valley, and the cities of Youngstown and Warren in particular, have "done a great job of rebranding." The cities' names now "really have some 'oomph' behind" them and he doesn’t see any reason to change the airport's name now.