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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022-03-10 Airport Commission MinutesMINUTES IOWA CITY AIRPORT COMMISSION March 10, 2022 — 6:00 P.M. AIRPORT TERMINAL BUILDING 3tJI Members Present: Warren Bishop, Chris Lawrence, Scott Clair, Judy Pfohl, Hellecktra Orozco Staff Present: Michael Tharp, Jennifer Schwickerath Others Present: Matt Wolford, Carl Byers, Shelly Maharry DETERMINE QUORUM A quorum was determined at 6:00 pm and Clair called the meeting to order. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Bishop moved to accept the corrected minutes post -verification of missed topics during an audio interruption. Lawrence seconded. The motion carried by voice vote 5-0. PUBLIC COMMENT None. ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION 1 ACTION a. Community Foundation / Airport Fundraising Schwickerath introduced Shelly Maharry, president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Johnson County, to give an overview of available services for Airport fundraising and to answer questions. Maharry said that the Foundation is a 501 (c)3 tax-exempt non-profit organization that is dedicated to promoting and championing charitable giving in Johnson County, with $55 million of assets under management. She explained that the Foundation's rationale was to provide an avenue for community members to give charitably to causes and spur greater donations than those municipalities can achieve. The Foundation lends its tax-exempt status to a project or program such as the Airport's mural, becoming the project's fiscal sponsor. Maharry explained that a narrowly focused idea, such as a mural fund, could be broadened to include a capital campaign or a wider range of betterment projects for the Airport. Donors could make gifts to such a fund housed at the Foundation, which would receive the gifts and hold them in a separate account, not invested, but held. The Foundation would send acknowledgement and thank you letters to the donors for their gift and for tax deductibility purposes, then oversee distributions to ensure that they matched the fund purpose. Maharry said that the Foundation could send donor funds to the City for reimbursement, or could pay vendors directly, but would not run payroll. The fee for the services would be fee on the 3%, charged at the point of distribution. Bishop asked whether the Foundation could accept donor -advised funds, and Maharry Airport Commission March 10, 2022 Page 2 of 10 confirmed that this was possible. Donors could also make more complex gifts, such as gifts of securities that had appreciated, thus bypassing capital gains taxes but taking the full value of the gift as a charitable deduction. Maharry explained that with 250 funds to look after, the Foundation does not do donor development or any sort of active fundraising, or aid directly in helping donors develop donation strategies. Bishop asked what the process would be to get started, and Tharp said that the first step was to figure out a suitably broad purpose for the fund, then having the Commission develop and pass a resolution agreeing to enter into a contract. Maharry said that the Foundation could draft their fiscal agent fund agreement for the Commission to consider and help draft language to ensure the fund purpose would be broad enough. The Foundation would need to know who the agreement executor and fund representative would be, and what type of reporting the Commission would like to see, whether quarterly reports alone or other metrics as well. Commissioners briefly debated who should be authorized to sign, and agreed that Tharp should be named as the representative for continuity's sake, and that they should make a resolution to give Tharp that power. Clair suggested that Maharry, Schwickerath, Tharp, and a Commission member get together to put together a fund package for a fund with the broad purpose of fundraising for projects and improvements for which federal funding was not available, draft an agreement, and check with the City to make sure the was nothing problematic legally. Bishop, Schwickerath, and Tharp agreed to do that by April or May. Maharry pointed out that such fiscal -sponsor relationships with community foundations were also attractive to funding agencies. Clair moved that the Commission form a small team to go off and pull together the particulars and come back to the commission either in April or May, Lawrence seconded, and the motion passed 5-0 by voice vote. Commissioners engaged in general discussion of the language that might be used to pitch the fund to donors, and Maharry clarified that specific purposes such as the mural or a particular building project could exist within the overall broad improvement fund purpose statement, allowing the Airport to fundraise for several projects with the same vehicle. The Foundation would track donor intent and ensure that distributions matched donor intent. Orozco asked what would happen to funds that were not used to complete a particular project, and Maharry stressed the need for transparency in communicating with donors, letting them know that the original project had been completed, and asking whether it would be acceptable to use the donated dollars on other Airport improvement projects. b. Airport Signage/Wayfinding Tharp said that the door vinyl from FUEL would cost roughly a thousand dollars and that he was preparing to move forward. The rest of the signage was estimated to cost $30-40K, and Tharp said the idea was to include those costs in the next state grant so that the project could be done all at once, although he thought that there might be some bumps with the terminal glass wall. Byers said the single ballpark price he'd gotten for the glass wall and weatherproofing to replace plywood would be about Airport Commission March 10, 2022 Page 3 of 10 $4,500. The Commissioners agreed that the glass -block wall was a good idea. Lawrence asked Tharp whether he thought the state would agree to fund these improvements, and Tharp said that because Iowa City was a relatively large and active airport, the signage it might be fundable. Lawrence asked what the backup plan would be, and Tharp said that it would simply involve saving money to spend on signage. Bishop suggested a public appeal through the new Airport fund to create an attractive gateway to the city. c. FAXIDOT Projects Runway 7125 Rehab East End Tharp said that they had received two bids close to the engineering estimate and that Byers had checked them for reasonableness and accuracy, and that their recommendation was to award the contract, pending FAA concurrence, to Fahrner Asphalt Sealers for just under $120,000. Bishop moved to approve a resolution A22- accepting bids and awarding contract for the Runway 7125 Rehabilitation East End project. Pfohl seconded. The resolution carried on a roll call vote, 5-0. Tharp said he would begin meeting with the contractors to get the work scheduled. Runway 25 Threshold Relocation Tharp said he had gotten confirmation -on the circling approach changes for the September 8th chart publication. Circling would not be available for Runway 12 at night. Tharp planned to get the preconstruction meeting together in order to get planning information to Jet Air and others who would need to be repositioned on some days. iii. South T-hangar infrastructure Tharp reported that staff focus had been the Hangar A door and that the South T-hangar project had not progressed, but confirmed that the plan was to start the public hearing process in April and have bid opening in June. iv. Hangar A Door Replacement (phase 1) Tharp reported that they had draft plans and specs, but that inflation might prevent them from getting all five doors done, which could affect the mural. He expects to have three as a base bid with the other two being as alternates. Lawrence asked if the idea was to target the ones that were worse off first. Tharp said that all were in the same condition, but that the Riverside Drive South side had had the most ground movement, which had compelled them to shave the bottom of the doors to be able to close them. Wolford asked if the ground movement would create problems for the new door, and Tharp replied that it probably would not and would be anticipated, also that previously added drainage had helped in the area. Pfohl asked if mural funds could help cover door costs, but Tharp was skeptical that it would help much, given that doors cost $20,000-25,000. The Commission discussed the order of door Airport Commission March 10, 2022 Page 4of 10 replacement to cause least disruption to the mural project, as well as the possibility of a mural RFP that provided for doing the work in phases. Bishop pointed out that this could ease some fundraising burden by reducing pressure to have all the money ready to go at the project's beginning. Commissioners also discussed the question of whether a low base bid would exempt them from having a formal hearing, but Tharp pointed out that alternates would put the board over the exemption limit. Tharp explained that the doors would be bifolds with straps, with straps costing about $1000 per door, and confirmed that all ten doors at the back had chain pulleys. Wolford asked whether it would be possible to do the whole building at some point, and Tharp explained that the state program caps rehab work at $75,000 next year and $125,000 the following year, and that it would probably take three cycles to do all of the doors, not including re -skinning doors to make them match cosmetically. v. FAA Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) Grant programs Tharp said that in the first year of BIL grants FAA was looking for shovel ready projects, but in years two through four or two through five, he believed planning projects would be eligible. He suggested the terminal building study would make a good project. Bishop asked whether that could include figuring out future terminal needs and getting BIL funds for work on the terminal; Tharp replied that he was working with Byers and Bolton & Menk to determine the kind of study to do and pricing it out. Bishop asked whether Tharp still saw the solar panel project as being appropriate for BIL. He said that Year 1 applications were due in two weeks, and that for Year 1, rather than dipping into uncertain discretionary funds, they would seek BIL money for runway rehabilitation work because their entitlements stood at roughly $500,000, which was earmarked for threshold relocation. He underscored that the Airport would still need to submit a proposal for those funds, but that legislation had allocated the funds for the particular purpose already. Tharp also cautioned that the sign projects might not qualify for BIL given BIL's energy -efficiency focused, and, though Wolford pointed out that the plywood wall replacement could be an efficiency projects, Tharp explained that the terminal program was meant to improve airfield safety through terminal relocation, replacing aging facilities, increasing capacity and passenger access, encouraging competition, improving energy efficiency, expanding access for persons with disabilities, and improving airport access for historically disadvantaged populations. He said FAA also preferred projects in progress to new projects. Commissioners suggested that the focus on historically disadvantaged populations could allow them to build a bike path leading to the terminal on the Airport's side of Riverside Drive, given that low-income people are less likely to have cars. Lawrence pointed out that the existing bike path goes past Harbor Freight, crosses into the parking lot at Fin and Feather, and takes a bicyclist to a frontage road that runs to the hotel near the hospital, Airport Commission March 10, 2022 Page 5 of 10 avoiding the intersection of Riverside. Lawrence confirmed that the Airport property ran all the way to the road north of the entrance. Tharp said that they would need guidance on the bike path idea, but that it could be explored as piece of the terminal study. He recapped, saying that this fiscal year's BIL application would be for the runway, due at the end of March, and that next year's would be for solar panels, combining those funds with the AIP program. He also pointed out that having converted to LED, they wouldn't need as many solar panels as they would have otherwise, and that Byers was working on planning for that application. d. Airport "Operations" i. Management ii. Airport Terminal Area/Parking Lot Tharp said that he would take Clair's comments on draft plans for the parking lot to Engineering and ask them to make the plan symmetrical. Lawrence asked whether the BIL could be a source of funds for the parking lot, and Tharp said that at a BIL webinar he'd attended someone had asked about parking, and the reception was not positive. Bishop pressed the point and Tharp reminded the Commission that they already had plans drawn up for the parking lot. iii. Airport Operations/Commission handbook Tharp said that Clair and the Commission had discussed putting together a handbook to aid new Commission chairpersons, and that he had followed up with Clair with a suggestion for a personnel handbook documenting Airport policies such as purchasing policies, work hour trades, and so on. He explained that he had always operated under the assumption that the Commission wanted staff to cleave to City policy as much as possible. Clair agreed and said that this would also address knowledge retention in employee and Commission turnover. Clair said his understanding was that Tharp had volunteered to begin collecting material and thinking about how to organize it. Tharp agreed that they would keep working on that. Clair noted that his goal would an onboarding document for Judy and eventually Hellectra. Pfohl said she would be interviewing staff for it, and asked for a section to list items like the land releasing. Lawrence discussed addition of GIS information that could be accessed by new Commissioners. iv. Budget Tharp said that the budget was on track, although there had been the unexpected expense of replacing radiant heaters in the hangers. 1. Art Mural Ai rpo rt Commission March 10, 2022 Page 6 of 16 a. Fundraising Bishop said that with the Foundation fund included in the plan, the next step for him and Pfohl would be to go back to the City and write the RFP, incorporating the new information about the hangar doors. After that, they would get the Foundation fund set up and form a fundraising plan. 2. Fuel Flowage Fees Wolford said that fuel prices had jumped due to the war in Ukraine: on this past Tuesday 100LL was up 40 cents and Jet A was up 60 cents. He had been able to capture a little more jet fuel at the previous price, which made a savings of $4,200, where an average price swing was about $100. 8. Flight Simulator rates/fees Tharp reminded the Commission that after they had reached the two-year mark with the flight simulator, they would consider revisiting the rates. He had spoken with several subscribers at the $50 rate who had time left and had been told that their time was expired as of December. After some debate about the expiry date, Bishop asked whether the subscribers could keep the hours they'd paid for, and said that they probably could, as they were not creating a bottleneck. Clair said the time limit had been meant as to be an incentive to use the machine but agreed it would be nice if the subscribers could keep their hours. Tharp said that the rate plan had been for 10 discounted hours or less, the subscriber had two years to use them, and if they bought more than ten, they had three years. Tharp stated that they were sold at a $45 an hour. Tharp said that they had started charging in March of 2020: during Covid shutdown, and that if the Commission wanted to extend the deadline it would be fine. He also pointed out that half of subscribers hadn't used any simulator time, but had bought hours in support of having the simulator in the Airport. Wolford asked about sending an extension letter with a firm date, rather than allowing the deadline to drift, saying that policies like that were bad for business. pointed out that the point of having an expiration date would be to allow for discussion of rate changes, so that if the price dropped members who had bought at the old price didn't wonder how their higher price would be compensated. Bishop believed that people should be able to keep hours they had paid for, and pointed out that last year the simulator did turn a profit. said that if the simulator was paid for and making expected revenues, they should at least give people another year given the Covid disruptions. Clair asked what the current rate was, and Tharp replied that it was $65/hr, but that they were in a position to lower the rate. After considerable discussion of the justice or injustice of dropping the rate below the early -buyer rate, user responsibility to use discounted hours by stated deadlines, and the comparative value of the Airport's simulator versus more sophisticated trainers rented in the $60/hr Airport Commission March 10, 2022 Page 7 of 10 range, Commissioners agreed to extend the deadline one year for those who had pre -bought 10 or fewer discounted hours at $45thr, to send a postcard to those subscribers informing them, and to keep the deadline the same for those who had bought over 10 hours and still had most of a year remaining, allowing all pre -bought hours to expire at the same time. Commissioners also agreed to lower the rental price to $351hr, which Bishop and Clair agreed would encourage pilots with instrument ratings to stay current despite Covid. Tharp and Commissioners also discussed the possibility of using simulator revenues to save for a newer simulator. Bishop suggested that Jet Air ask people to use an instructor for the first hour of simulator use, which would bring in revenue and help users get full value out of the machine. asked to work with Wolford on establishing the service fee; Wolford said it would drop from $20 to $10. Bishop moved that they lower the retail rate per hour for the flight simulator to $35 an hour and extend hours through March 2023, Lawrence seconded. Motion carried by voice vote 3-0 (Clair, Bishop abstained) 4. Toyota Iowa City a. Consider a resolution approving lease amendment #2 (A22- 09) Tharp explained that Toyota of Iowa City has leased airport land for their dealership lot for about 20 years. The lease under discussion extend the lease another 10 years, increasing the rate by 0.4 cents per square foot plus an every - five -year CPI inflation adjustment. He affirmed that the Airport had no plan to use the property. Clair asked whether a CPI adjustment was appropriate, and Tharp said that it had worked well, also that they could ask for more, but needed to keep in mind that Toyota's use was the thing making the land valuable. Clair asked for the total lease amount, and Tharp said it was around 10,000 per year. There was some discussion over the size of the lot; Tharp was uncertain but thought it was approximately an acre. Pfohl questioned a lease extension to 2033 on a signed lease offer from 2021. Tharp assured Commissioners that since there was no modification in the lease extension, countersigning now would be fine. Pfohl asked for the historical payment record. Bishop moved to approve the resolution approving lease extension of rates with Dreusicke holdings incorporated, and Pfohl seconded. The resolution passed on a 5.0 roll call vote. v. Events 1. Autocross: April 24; July 24; August 21 Tharp said that Autocross events had been organized and were similar to previous years, and that the dates for the drive-in movies had been announced: Memorial Day weekend and the first weekend of October, listed online with the City's Summer of the Arts. The August pancake Airport Commission March 10, 2022 Page 8 of 10 breakfast would take place, and Tharp said he was working with the Young Eagles group to determine whether and when their event would take place. Pfohl asked whether parking lot work would disrupt any of the events. Tharp said that the parking lot work would take about two weeks and would not affect the Autocross and most other events. It might affect a Young Eagles event, but that this would be manageable. Tharp added that he was working with the multicultural development center on a programmable drone -building class for kids, and that he was working with Wolford to make one of the bigger box hangars available for them. Pfohl offered the gym at her church near Northridge park as well. As for the public conference in April, Tharp said that the Airport would have a round table discussion that would feature himself, Clair, and Wolford, and that he would also prepare some welcoming speeches for the event. Pfohl wanted to revisit the mural project fundraising, asking whether funds could be used to repaint the hangar system Jet Air leases to improve the look of the Airport for events. said that the fund could be set up to accept general improvement donations. Tharp said it the expense would come out of the Airport's budget, and Commissioners discussed the range of expenses involved. All agreed that the building needs cosmetic improvement. Clair asked Tharp whether he could start earmarking money for painting or otherwise improving the look of the hangars, and Tharp agreed to figure something out. e. FBO t Flight Training Reports i. Jet Air Wolford said that the maintenance report was short due to the limited number of snow and ice storms, and that the brush was back in time to brush off the slush. Getting fuel and parts had already been difficult, but he was uncertain what the large jump in prices everywhere would do, given that a jet might burns 250 gallons an hour. Pfohl asked whether there would be a plan to add ethanol to jet fuel as an extender. Wolford said it was hard to tell, that El had been approved for a year but had seen limited use. Wolford also said that ethanol probably wouldn't have any impact on Jet A because it had a different refining process. Bishop asked whether lead free fuel would be available, but Wolford said it would not be available locally yet, though FAA was starting to look more seriously at phasing out leaded fuel. He planned to go to a conference session in California where that was the topic. Wolford added that Jet Air would host a four-hour summer student job shadow for the Kirkwood Learning Center, and the liaison had said that 23 high school students were interested and would take part. They would also carry on with the Summer Transportation Institute for Jet Air's junior hires, which was inaugurated last summer as a virtual program. Bishop asked how Jet Air was for deicing material, and Wolford said that they had about two pallets left. He added that he would love to have the budget for Airport Commission March 10, 2022 Page 9 of 10 10 pallets a year or more because once they start using it, if wind blew snow and ice back onto the runway and created a sheet of ice, they needed to apply more, so use of deicer had to be timed exquisitely. He estimated that one full treatment cost $12,000. For perspective, he said, their entire operating budget was Cedar Rapids' winter budget. f. Commission Members' Reports Nothing to report. g. Staff Report Tharp said that the Iowa Children's Museum had reached out and was planning to redo the Take Flight exhibit, which had used donations from the Airport last time, including half of an airplane was donated by somebody. The Airport assisted in putting the exhibit together, along with grant writing and. The ICM had gotten funding at the time from NASA. Wolford said that one of the things that the Jet Air planned to do was to get a GoPro set up on an airplane to do local fly arounds of Kinnick Stadium and other local landmarks for use in children's "simulators" that scroll good footage. He planned to give the recording job to student pilots who have used the GoPro with a wing mount before. The ICM would like Airport input on improving the exhibit and introducing new items, and Tharp asked for volunteers. SET NEXT REGULAR MEETING The next meeting is scheduled for 6:00 pm, April 14, 2022, at the Airport. All members expect to be present. ADJOURN Clair called for a motion to adjourn; Lawrence moved and Bishop seconded, and the motion passed by a 5- 0 voice vote. Meeting was adjourned at 7:27 pm. A CHAIRPERSON DATE Airport Commission March 10, 2022 Page 10 of 10 Airport Commission ATTENDANCE RECORD 2022 TERM O w O O cn O cn O rn O .r O � O eai O 0 3 0 3 3 3 O 3 3 t� O NAME EXP. -M1 N co N W N N O Pt W„ N 2 N N N N COf0 N N W N N N N 3 3 3 3 Z 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 N N Warren 06/30/22 Bishop X X X X X X O/E X X X X X X X X X Scott Clair 06/30/23 X X O/E X X X X X X X O/E X X X X X Christopher 06/30/25 X X X X O/E X X X X X OlE X X X X X Lawrence Hellecktra 06/30124 X X/E O/E X X O/E O/E X X X X X X X X X Orozco Judy Pfohl 06/30/22 X/E X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X Key: X = Present X/E = Present for Part of Meeting O = Absent O/E = Absent/Excused NM = Not a Member at this time