Albany International Airport CEO Philip Calderone talks to the mother of Canadian pilot Natalie Gillis, who died in a June plane crash. The effort to replace Calderone with Albany County Executive Dan McCoy shows it's time to take away control of the airport from county officials.

COLONIE — Dan McCoy's aborted airport coup raises a question: Why is a regional economic engine under the control of Albany County goofballs?

Yes, the airport sits in Albany County's Colonie but its success is just as vitally important to those living in Saratoga, Schenectady and Rensselaer counties. Places beyond that too. Everyone understands there's no GlobalFoundries in Malta without a well-functioning airport, just as there's no Regeneron in East Greenbush.

That's part of what makes the McCoy shenanigans so abhorrent. His scheme to get airport CEO Phil Calderone canned so he could grab the job means the Democrat brought a bush-league Albany County patronage mentality to a land that should be above such foolishness. An international airport can't be a politician's plaything.

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The scheme, as reported by my colleagues Brendan J. Lyons and Steve Hughes, wouldn't have been possible without this unfortunate fact: All seven members of the Albany County Airport Authority board are appointed by McCoy or the Albany County Legislature. That setup invites the political malfeasance for which the county has long been........

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