Buffett International Airport and AIA Jimmy Buffett Hwy?
Buffett International Airport and AIA Jimmy Buffett Hwy?
According to The Palm Beach Post, officials are taking steps to name the Key West airport after Jimmy Buffett, and a petition to support the name change had garnered 25,000 signatures in the first three days it was circulated.
The idea was also endorsed by someone who altered the Key West International Airport entrance sign to add Buffett’s name to it days after Buffett passed. The sign read “Key West Jimmy Buffett International Airport.” It was quickly removed.
Monroe County commissioner Craig Cates said the county wanted to be respectful of Buffett’s family in any process and that the Federal Aviation Administration would have to approve the name change. If all the entities involved approve, the issue would put it into referendum for Monroe County voters to decide.
The Palm Beach Post reported a petition began circulating just days after the legendary singer-songwriter’s death on Sept. 1. As of Thursday, the petition had already gathered 22,994 signatures of the stated goal of 25,000.
“We also are respectful of the family,” Monroe County commissioner Craig Cates, a former mayor of Key West, said in The Palm Beach Post.
“We’re making sure that we’d be allowed to change the name, which we probably will but that’s still a process.”
An avid pilot and former Key West resident, Buffett’s 1974 album A1A was named after the hwy. that connects Key West to mainland Florida. and there is a chance that sections of that road may carry his name. State Rep Chuck Clemons has filed House Bill 91, seeking to grant an “honorary designation” to A1A in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Nassau counties. If the bill is approved, the coastal highway, which stretches from Key West in the south to Fernandina Beach in the north, will be renamed the Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway in those counties.