Air Show “Evictions” Recanted

Organizers of the Monaco Air Duluth Airshow are getting a hard-won lesson in public relations after their president told the owners of six homes bordering the airport they’d have to be somewhere else during the show. Ryan Kern told the six families that since their houses were in the air show box, they’d have to leave home from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. for each of the three days (July 5-7) of the performance (he did offer them air show passes), according to the Duluth News Tribune. Well, the good folks of Lavacque Road in Hermantown, Minn., are reasonable folks who don’t appear to want to spoil anyone’s fun but they did kind of balk at Kern’s apparently self-imposed powers of eviction. The local police also noted that private property rights supersede the air show’s operational challenges. Fortunately, cooler heads (and a little spending money) prevailed. David Boe, the show’s public relations director, said the intent was never to try to evict people and he apologized for any misunderstanding. Then he offered each of the families $250 in cash and a $50 restaurant certificate to find something else to do on those days. “We really didn’t want to ruin the air show for everyone,” Melissa Pagnac told the News Tribune. “This is kind of a shocker. I never understood the whole ordeal.” Pagnac’s mother-in-law, Allison, said there’s some inconvenience but nothing she’s not prepared to handle. “I’d rather stay in my home, but what am I going to do? You can’t cancel the air show,” she said.