Sir Walter Scott once wrote, "Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive". In what may best be described as a flawed planning process and at worst an outright attempt at deception, The Air Force failed to tell the Levy County Commission and the citizens of our community that they intended to use live munitions at the proposed missile testing range. Instead, the two spokesmen for the Air Force, Sgt. Michael Spaits and Ken Bristol told the commission at a public hearing on May 4 that there would only be dummy warheads used at the range. It was only due to the investigative work of Levy County Commissioner Lilly Rooks that the truth was discovered, that live munitions would in fact be used after initial testing of dummy warheads. This information along with the other health, safety, and economic difficulties presented by the proposal resulted in the commission voting favorably for a resolution in opposition to the missile testing range in Levy County. Two days later, on May 6, after a meeting with the Department of Defense, Congresswoman for District 5, Ginny Browne-Waite issued a press release in which she also rejected the proposal for the testing range in Levy County when she instructed the Air Force to, "Remove Levy County from your list of possible missile testing sites". If the Air Force had followed the long established protocol of first informing the member of congress for the district in which they are intending to implement a major policy decision before they go to the public with the proposal, they could have avoided the embarrassment of being caught in a deception which inevitably would have come home to cause problems for the proposal later down the road. Instead, the Air Force made the mistake of leaving our member of congress, as well as our United States Senators out of the information loop, and went directly to the public with partial information in order to sell the plan. It blew up in their face when Commissioner Rooks discovered that the Air Force had informed the Taylor County Commission that live weapons would later be used at the range. According to an article in the Chiefland Citizen, Commissioner Rooks then called the Eglin Natural Resources Planner Ken Bristol, who had made the initial presentation to the commission on April 20, and Bristol admitted that in fact there would be live weapons used at the range. On April 20, Cedar Key News also had a lengthy conversation with both Bristol and Sgt. Spaits at the Levy County Courthouse in which they said that only dummy warheads would be used. They never once offered the fact that live weapons would be used when the range became permanent. In two weeks there will be a meeting on the proposed missile testing range in Dixie County. Hopefully the Air Force will remember to mention that live munitions will be tested at the range. | 