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HomeMy WebLinkAbout12-14-2000 Airport Commission Meeting Minutes I. MINUTES IOWA CITY AIRPORT COMMISSION THURSDAY DECEMBER 14,2000—5:45 P.M. IOWA CITY AIRPORT TERMINAL MEMBERS PRESENT: Rick Mascari,Howard Horan, Mark Anderson STAFF PRESENT: Sue Dulek, Ron O'Neil CALL TO ORDER: Chairperson Mascari called the meeting to order at 5:47 p.m. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: The minutes of the November 9,and November 28,2000,Commission meetings were approved after some minor corrections to the minutes of November 9. AUTHORIZATION OF EXPENDITURES: Anderson made a motion to approve the bills. Horan seconded the motion and the bills were approved 3—0. PUBLIC DISCUSSION—ITEMS NOT ON AGENDA: Dennis Gordon said he has not signed his lease for Building H and would like to go on a month to month basis for a couple of months. He said his two tenants have not given him a commitment yet. O'Neil said this is not a decision the Commission can make at this meeting because this is not an agenda item. The consensus of the Commission would be to approve a month to month lease at the next meeting. O'Neil will have this as an agenda item at the January 11,2001 meeting. Jim Heihtsman,from Qwest Corporation, requested a lease from the Commission for a piece of property on Southgate Avenue to install a small building for communications equipment. He circulated a picture of the electrical equipment he wanted to install on the 25' by 30' piece of property. Mascari asked if the equipment would emit any type of signal that would interfere with aircraft equipment. Herlrtsman said he was not aware of any problems the equipment would create. Heihtsman said he would want a lease for as long as possible. He said the life expectancy of the equipment is 20 years. He would also like to pay a lump sum as opposed to monthly or yearly rent. O'Neil said that the property Qwest would like to lease is the same property that Harry Wolf, from Southgate Development,had contacted the Commission about last summer. At that time, the Commission was not certain how much of the property they would be interested in leasing. O'Neil suggested contacting Southgate before any decision is made. O'Neil said the property was purchased from Tom Kennedy as part of a larger parcel for RPZ protection. Mascari said this could be put on the agenda for the next meeting. He said there is a limit to the length of the lease that the FAA is comfortable with. Mascari said Southgate should be contacted to see if they are still interested in this piece of property. ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION/ACTION: a. Building K-O'Neil said three of the hangars are occupied. There are commitments for the other hangars but the tenants will not be moving in until January I, 2001. Selzer Werderitsch has agreed to pay the rents for the hangars not rented in December because they did not meet their November 17, 2000 completion deadline. The building has been inspected by the Building Department and has an Occupancy Permit. O'Neil said there is a punch list of items to be completed. The contractor did not put handles or latches on the two ten-foot garage doors. This makes it difficult to open or close the doors. It is part of the punch list. b. Hangar leases-#31,#32,#33,-O'Neil said these are the remaining hangars in Building G. For hangar#34,the tenant was given a two-year lease. Harry Hinckley,the tenant from#31, said he would like to see a five-year lease. O'Neil said Hinckley was informed that this would be on the agenda for tonight's meeting. Anderson had a question about the insurance requirements. Dulek said she will make a correction in the insurance requirements and O'Neil will send an amendment to the hangar tenants. c. FBO services- Mascari said he reviewed the proposed lease. He said he thought the Commission would offer a 10-year lease. Anderson said he would like two five-year leases. O'Neil said there are about 18 years left on the lease for Building F. If the Commission selects another FBO,the building will be leased to the new FBO. Anderson said he wanted to go over some of the lease. Mascari said he thought 10 years would be the right length of lease. Horan said he thought it should be longer because an FBO would need a longer lease to get a return for his investment. O'Neil suggested a 10-year lease,with another five or ten-year extension at the approval of both parties. Fees should be negotiated at least every five years. Dick Blum,from H. R. Green, said his experience has been that the FBO leases are for 20 years. He said he thought the FAA would like to see fees negotiated on a five-year basis. The Commission decided to offer a ten-year lease,with two five-year renewals. There would have to be some mechanism to cancel the lease for default. Mascari said there is a real problem with enforcement of a default clause. Anderson said he thought the value for each building the FBO leases should be spelled out instead of just listing the rent as a lump sum. O'Neil said he does spell out on the current bill to the FB0 what each individual building costs. There was discussion on the north T-hangars. O'Neil said in the current lease,the FBO is given about 50%of the income for the north T-hangars. In the past,the FB0 was paid for managing the hangars and doing the maintenance. O'Neil said that now,we do the maintenance, supply the electricity and own the buildings and the FBO gets about 45%of the rent. O'Neil said there is room for negotiation. The Commission could offer the hangars to the FBO if there is something received in return. The F130 could do maintenance or pay the electrical. Mascari said the Commission should take control of the north T-hangars. Anderson said it should be specific who is paying what utilities on each of the buildings the FBO would lease. Anderson said he would like to make sure the FBO is providing rental aircraft and training. O'Neil said this is something that would have to be changed in the Minimum Standards if the Commission wants to require that rental and training be provided by the FBO. Mascari said that in speaking with other FBOs, it has become clear to him that rental and training are not profitable. Anderson said it should be done as part of the package of the FBO, even though that segment of the business is not profitable. There was discussion about what the FBO would be allowed to construct without the Commission's permission. O'Neil said he thought there was sufficient language in the lease, but it could be spelled out more clearly if the Commission wanted to. Anderson had a question about the bankruptcy paragraph. Dulek said she needed to revise that entire paragraph. Anderson said the lease should contain language about business insurance. O'Neil said that is all addressed in the minimum standards. Reference to the minimum standards will be spelled out in the lease. Anderson said the expectations of the FBO services should be spelled out clearly, such as parking aircraft and answering the UNICOM. Violations of the minimum standards can be charged with a municipal infraction. Mascari asked O'Neil to make the changes discussed and send copies to the Commission members. The Commission can contact O'Neil with any comments and then he can send the proposed lease to ICFS. This will be an agenda item at the next meeting. d. North Commercial area 1. Marketing—O'Neil said there is a copy of the letters sent to the two companies that expressed interest in marketing the property. He said that at their last meeting,the Commission decided they would not interview the marketing companies until after the CouncillConunission subcommittee met. Mascari said he has contacted the Mayor and he attended a meeting of the Economic Development committee. Anderson said they have been waiting for three months for the subcommittee to meet. He thought it was important to move forward. Mascari said he would write a letter to the Mayor and explain that the Commission is ready to move forward. It is important that the Council and the Commission understand the Commission's plan for reducing the amount of money needed from the general fund for Airport operations. Councilman Phab said he thought the Council was concerned about where the extra money would go after the development got to the break-even point. Anderson said there were several construction projects identified in the Master Plan that would require funding. 2. Other issues—No issues were presented. e. Fly Iowa 2001- Anderson said the committee had a meeting last week. He said there were no new issues discussed. A professional fund-raiser has volunteered her services to raise money for the event. Dick Blum,part of the Fly Iowa committee, said the logo needed to incorporate the official Fly Iowa logo. f. Airside access policy- O'Neil said the Commission requested this be on the agenda. Anderson was concerned with the amount of vehicle traffic on the airside of the airport, especially during home football and basketball games. He said there is a push by the FAA to limit runway incursions and he thought the Commission should do their part to limit incursions. Mascari said he thought the Commission should look into installing another access gate by the Terminal Building. It could be activated by the FBO if someone wanted to get to their aircraft to load or unload luggage. The gate could be on the north side of the Terminal. O'Neil said the Commission had a grant to install a gate on the north side of the Terminal and a past Commission decided that it was not a safe enough place for a gate. Anderson asked if a grant could be written for a gate. O'Neil said the Commission would probably want to apply to the IDOT. In answer to a question from Anderson, O'Neil said the project could not be installed now and paid for later. Construction projects are not eligible for reimbursement after the fact. O'Neil said the north side of the ramp is a blind spot. Vehicles going in that gate do not have a clear view of vehicles and aircraft on the ramp. The Commission agreed to apply for a grant in the Spring for a controlled access gate. Horan suggested installing the gate on the south side of the Terminal where there is better visibility. Anderson said he would also like to talk about having a bathroom available 24 hours a day. O'Neil said he got an estimate of about$ 1200 to$ 1800 to have a coded lock installed. The price may have to include a new door. The door on the office the Commission wanted to make available to the public may not be compatible with the type of lock the Commission wanted to install. Anderson said he thought he could fmd a better price and would bring that information to a future meeting. O'Neil said there would also be a cost to keep the office clean. He said the Commission had suggested raising hangar rents to pay for the costs. The Commission said to ask the cleaning service how much more a month they would charge to clean the office and bathroom. CHAIRPERSON'S REPORT: Mascari said Councilman Phab stopped by his workplace the other day to discuss how things were going at the Airport. Mascari said he appreciated that. Mascari wished everyone a Happy Holidays. COMMISSION MEMBERS' REPORTS: Anderson commented on the article in the packet concerning Bob Staib and Iowa Jet Services. Horan said the weather report would indicate that O'Neil would be working real hard this coming weekend. ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT: Dulek talked to the DNR about waterfowl around the Airport. The Fish and Wildlife Department will come out and do an analysis of ways to eliminate or reduce the amount of waterfowl around the Airport. The Commission agreed she should schedule a time for them to do that. She has also reviewed the easement with Wal-Mart to see how much responsibility they have to control waterfowl on their detention pond. She said there is language that makes them somewhat responsible for controlling the waterfowl on their pond. O'Neil said the Zoning Commission has voted to hire H.R. Green Company to update the Airport Zoning Code. Green will start as soon as the City and the County review the contract. The water lines to the sinks in the men's restroom in the Terminal Building have frozen. The water lines were installed in the outside masonry wall. Larew is looking for a way to reroute the water lines so they will not be in an outside wall. O'Neil said he met with Morrie Cohen,from HLM,to discuss why the water lines were reinstalled in an outside wall when the building was remodeled. There will be a question on who should pay for rerouting the waterlines. O'Neil asked Blum if he had a schedule for bidding the new fuel tanks. Blum said that the tanks would be bid in February,with a construction completion date on June 1,2001. SET NEXT MEETING: The next regular Airport Commission meeting is scheduled for January 11,2001,at 5:45 p.m. ADJOURNMENT: The meeting was adjourned at 7:55 p.m. Rick Mascari, Chairperson