Why, Angela Hunt, You Hurt Boise's Feelings

By Robert Wilonsky Thu., Dec. 16 2010 at 2:06 PM

Categories: City Hall, Probably Insignificant Aviation News

I dunno -- from the looks of these photos, the Boise airport is kinda nice.

Like I wrote yesterday, Sam was at that council briefing during which they back-and-forthed over those three themes for the new-n-improved Love Field. Sam shot me a few texts during the meeting, including some funny quotes from council members as they pro-and-conned the options. But when he got back, he said nothing much had happened, except they all finally opted to go with the (surprise, surprise, surprise) Distinctively Dallas theme -- which had better look a whole lot more distinctive than the renderings.

Anyway. A little while ago, I asked Sam to go back over his notes and see if he had Angela Hunt's quote in which she voiced her support for the Texas Outdoors option. Here it is:

"For some reason, we run away from the fact that we're in Texas. We're always afraid of the big cowboy hats and the Dallas TV show. I think we oughta embrace it. I mean, we're not Boise, Idaho. We don't have to have this kind of plain vanilla look about our airport. I think we should be proud of the fact that we've got the cowboy thing going on. We have incredible outdoor landscapes to choose from to kind of bring indoors."

A shortened version of that quote appeared in this morning's recap from Steve Thompson, which made it all the way back to Boise, where they done took offense. From the Idaho Statesman comes this response from Patti Miller, the spokeswoman for Boise's city-owned airport:

"With all due respect to the council member from Texas, I would beg to disagree with her 'vanilla' opinion based on the consistently positive response from our customers at Boise Airport. Comments repeated throughout our biannual customer surveys are 'beautiful,' 'clean,' and 'friendly;' all perfectly descriptive of Boise, Idaho and her people. If our graceful and efficient river theme is considered vanilla by Ms. Hunt, we'll take it. I wish the Dallas City Council the best as they choose their own theme for their own airport."

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