TITTABAWASSEE TOWNSHIP, MI — The forecast for the next few days in James Canders’ life calls for rain and preparing for a potential 10,000-attendee political event.
The MBS International Airport manager will serve as one of several officials at the center of preparing Tittabawassee Township for a Wednesday, May 1, campaign rally for Donald Trump, the former president campaigning again for the job.
Canders and many others in the Saginaw County community also known as Freeland — population, 5,000 — aren’t new to all this. Some of them were in the same positions in September 2020, when Trump hosted a bid for the White House at Avflight, the MBS International Airport-based aviation station that will serve as his campaign stage again this week.
Plenty has changed in the last four years, too, and Canders and others have remained busy preparing for what to expect this time around.
“I’ve heard several thousand people will be there,” Canders said. “Basically, I’m planning that it will be a number similar to 2020. At least I have a little bit of experience with that and can get a good idea of what needs to be done ahead of time.”
In fall 2020, officials anticipated about 5,000 people would attend President Trump’s rally.
Then 10,000 people showed up, essentially tripling the population of Freeland for a day.
It was a surreal scene for people familiar with the quiet, rural setting that surrounds MBS International Airport. While a healthy business corridor resides about three miles west of the airport, farmland largely surrounds its hangars and terminals.
When the then-sitting president arrived via Air Force One four years ago, crowds of supporters — and accompanying protesters — awaited. Some attendees, in fact, camped out overnight in the airport’s parking lots in hopes of securing a front-row seat to the big event. As his rally speech approached, airport and law enforcement forces were busy directing the massive amount of vehicles and foot traffic that followed Trump there.
Canders and other officials said, if the Wednesday rally attracts the same level of following, their experience could make for a smooth experience for all. Some projected differences, though, could present challenges unfamiliar to them.
A rainy forecast in the days leading up to Wednesday, for example, could eliminate some of the grass-field parking areas used in 2020, Canders said.
“We’ll probably have a similar setup, but the main difference is, that (2020 rally) was in mid-September, when the ground was dry,” the airport manager said. “We’re in springtime now, and that grass is going to be wet, so I’m going to be losing 50% of my potential parking space. We’re going to have to be a little more deliberate with our parking scheme.”
Canders said he plans to keep the public informed about the traffic and parking setup via the airport’s website at mbsairport.org. As of this publication, some of those details remain in the planning stages.
One of the new elements of the next rally: A new police chief is in town. Dave Duffett was in charge of a police department in a different Saginaw County community — Bridgeport Township — when Trump visited mid-Michigan during the 2020 rally.
“It’s going to be a whole new adventure for me,” said Duffett, who was sworn in as Tittabawassee Township’s top law enforcer last year.
Still, Duffett was in place when President Joe Biden landed via Air Force One at MBS International Airport last month as part of his own campaign in a region considered a key political battleground point heading into this November’s election.
Biden’s visit kept him in Tittabawassee Township only briefly — he spent much of his time visiting other corners of Saginaw County — but Duffett still gained experience collaborating with the Secret Service and other agencies charged with keeping a high-profile political figure secure.
While Trump no longer holds office, ex-presidents continue to receive Secret Service detail. Duffett said that means his agency will collaborate again with the Secret Service for Trump’s visit. State police and Saginaw County sheriff’s officials will also join the effort to keep the rally safe and orderly, Duffett said.
“One thing that’s fortunate about this area is that our law enforcement works well together,” he said. “We collaborate well with our counterparts.”
There were no major security incidents in September 2020, Canders said, despite the mix of supporters and protesters that gathered for the divisive politician’s last rally at the airport.
“People are able to come out here and exercise their First Amendment rights,” Canders said. “We ask everyone to remain civil out here, but sometimes that doesn’t happen, and so law enforcement will be on site to make sure everyone is behaving appropriately.”
Trump’s campaign there comes as the former president remains engaged in an ongoing criminal trial in Manhattan, where he is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records as part of a scheme to bury stories he feared could harm his 2016 campaign. Trump attends those proceedings, but Wednesdays serve as off-days in the trial, leaving the former reality TV game show host a one-day window each week to travel.
Michigan isn’t his only destination this Wednesday. His campaign announced a rally planned in Waukesha, Wisconsin, at 2 pm Wednesday.
His Tittabawassee Township gathering is scheduled for 6 pm Tickets on his campaign website remain available.
Canders said, while he had not yet confirmed all the flight details as of this publication, he suspected Trump will arrive via the private Boeing 757 aircraft that typically transports him across the world, post-Air Force One.
Emblazoned with the name “Trump” on the side of its fuselage, the Trump Organization-owned aircraft carries the nickname “Trump Force One.”
Managing the aircraft’s arrival, security and departure — and then managing the crowd gathering for a glimpse of its primary passenger — won’t be simple, but Canders said he was confident officials will be ready come Wednesday.
“The closest comparison to preparing for this (rally), for me, is an air show,” said Canders, a former administrator at WK Kellogg Airport in Battle Creek. “At (Battle Creek), we had an air show every July, and it’s a similar scenario: You’re getting everybody there, you’re parking them, you’re securing the areas, and you’re trying to manage an airport .”
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