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HomeMy WebLinkAbout11-13-2003 Airport Commission Meeting Minutes MINUTES • IOWA CITY AIRPORT COMMISSION THURSDAY,NOVEMBER 13,2003—5:45 P.M. IOWA CITY AIRPORT TERMINAL MEMBERS PRESENT: Baron Thrower,Randy Hartwig,John Staley STAFF PRESENT: Sue Dulek,Ron O'Neil CALL TO ORDER: Chairperson Thrower called the meeting to order at 5:45 p.m. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: O'Neil said the"Members Present"in the minutes was not correct and would be changed. The minutes of the October 9,2003,Commission meeting were approved with the correction. REVIEW OF EXPENDITURES: Thrower asked O'Neil to explain the monthly billing process to Staley. O'Neil said that the bills are paid as they are received during the month if it is money that has been included in the annual budget. If there is a bill that is questionable,O'Neil said he might hold the bill and discuss it with the Commission. He said the list of expenditures is more of a briefing of the past month's actions as it is a request for approval. ' O'Neil said the last bill listed is a partial payment for a Spill Prevention Control and Countermeasure Plan. Several City departments were required to have a plan. Stanley Consultants produced the plans. The plan was required,but was not budgeted for in FY 2003. The requirement to have a plan was not known at the time the FY 2003 budget was developed. O'Neil said he would have to find money somewhere in the budget or ask for a budget amendment. He said there is annual training that is required along with the plan. O'Neil said he and the maintenance worker and some employees from Jet Air should attend training. Jet Air is responsible for fueling aircraft. He said the training is$1000 and there is no money in the budget for training. There was discussion on whether or not the expenditures needed to be approved every month. O'Neil said he will continue to provide a list of check requests and the Commission can decide on whether or not approval is required. PUBLIC DISCUSSION—ITEMS NOT ON AGENDA: No items were presented. UNFINISHED ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION/ACTION: O'Neil said the question was raised last month on whether there was any written policy by the Council for land use in the Aviation Commerce Park. He said he discussed this with the City Manager and Atkins will check on it. There may be Council minutes that discuss it. Thrower asked if,barring a written land use policy,zoning was the only thing governing the property? O'Neil said zoning was the main control. 1 • O'Neil said that at the last meeting, implementing additional fees was discussed. He said he explained that the flowage fee is part of Jet Air's lease. He discussed this with Jet Air and they were not interested in opening the lease at this time. Thrower wanted to know if some other fee could be charged,based on a per gallon rate? O'Neil said that would be possible but a method of collection may be difficult. Thrower asked Dulek if the Commission could require Jet Air to collect a fee? Dulek said the Commission could not require Jet Air to collect a fee for the Commission. Thrower asked if the Airport had the capacity to collect a fee? O'Neil said collection would be difficult because he does not have direct interaction with the fuel customers and it would have to be collected directly from the customer. Hartwig said he thought this would also bring a negative response from the customers. O'Neil said there was one other issue from last month. He said Mascari stated that the Commission decided at last year's budget meeting to cut the equipment replacement fund in half. O'Neil checked the minutes from October 2002. Cutting the fund in half was suggested but was not supported by a majority of the Commission. Hartwig asked if the equipment replacement budget was cut for FY 2004? O'Neil said that at last month's meeting,the Commission voted to reduce the equipment replacement fund by 50%. ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION/ACTION: a. Environmental Assessment project—O'Neil said there was a letter in the Commission packet with a list of items from the FAA that needed to be addressed further in the EA. He said he discussed this list with Joe Tmka, from H.R. Green and most of the corrections have been made. The rest should be completed soon. O'Neil said he spoke with Mark Schenkelberg,the FAA Environmental Specialist, about a completion schedule. Schenkelberg said it would take somewhere between two to six months to complete the EA. O'Neil said the EA must be completed before any construction is started on the Runway 07 project. b. Obstruction mitigation project—O'Neil said Stanley Consultants are moving forward with the project. There is a contractor that would like to move forward with removing the trees on his property. O'Neil said he contacted Mike Man from the Office of Aviation and Marr told him to move ahead with that property. Normally,all of the tree removal should be bid out in one contract. The other obstructions will be bid out. O'Neil said he would like to remove most of the obstructions in the winter months when the ground is frozen. c. Aviation Commerce Park(ACP)—Tracy Overton, from Iowa Realty,presented his monthly report. He said he and O'Neil met with a potential tenant,but there has not been any additional contact from the buyer. Overton said that in order to prompt development in the ACP,there are two activities that would help. One of the activities could be to speculate a building. This would be sold or leased. Thrower said one of the things discussed last month was if the pricing should change. He wanted to know if Overton thought the price should be reduced? Overton said he didn't think so. Overton said he has talked to a couple of his clients on other properties about their intention to raise prices. Thrower asked if Scott Byers,the broker, still thought the pricing was appropriate? Overton said he would discuss this with Byers. Overton said if the objective is just to sell the property quickly,then lowering the price should be considered. If S it is lowered to sell the first lot,this will set the tone for the rest of the development. Thrower said sometimes stimulating the original buyer to purchase is important. That 2 wouldn't mean all the lots would be kept at the lower rate. Thrower requested input from • Byers on pricing. Mark Anderson said that when he was on the Commission, a letter was sent to the Council requesting the ACP be considered a TIF district. No reply was received from Council. d. Mormon Trek development—David Larson,a property developer, said he would like to work with the Commission on developing some parcels of Airport property near his property on the new portion of Mormon Trek. Larson said there are three possible Airport sites outside the Runway Protection Zone. He said he would also like to talk to the Commission about fill dirt and an access road across Airport property. Thrower asked O'Neil if any of the areas mentioned would be needed for aviation purposes? O'Neil said the areas discussed by Larson are outside the RPZ. O'Neil said that he would recommend having the runway project plan approved by the FAA before any decision was made on what to do with the outlots. Larson said he has potential tenants for his property and they may want to incorporate the Airport parcels in their development. O'Neil said he would recommend the property be leased instead of sold. The property was purchased with FAA funds. A release would be required to sell the property and 90%of the funds may have to be returned to the FAA if the property is sold. Larson said the City is eager to have the access road completed to open up more industrial area. His access road would loop through the Dane and Williams property and connect on both ends to Mormon Trek. ' Larson said he is still interested in developing a water detention area on the Dane property. He would need approval from the Commission for access across Airport property to Willow Creek. If a permanent easement is required,approval will be needed from the City Council. Larson said he would like to work with the Commission on moving the fill dirt in the area to benefit both the Airport and his property. He would like to work with Earth Tech as they are developing the Airport's plan. Mark Anderson said that the Commission should be very careful about allowing additional wetlands to be constructed in the area. O'Neil said the Fish and Wildlife Department may want to encourage more habitats,but the FAA has the final decision and their first concern will be safety. e. Strategic planning -Thrower said the two recent resignations to the Commission have presented a challenge to making progress on the plan. He said he would like to divide the two largest pieces between himself and Hartwig and have Staley work with O'Neil on what the revised budget would look like. This would include cost containment and revenue enhancements. Thrower said there are areas in the Strategic plan that are similar and compliment the work done by ABS but the ABS report was missing some fundamental elements. Thrower said all of the parts of the Strategic plan would be worked on individually and would be given to O'Neil to coordinate. Thrower said he would provide O'Neil with a template for the final plan form. S 3 O'Neil suggested sending the Council a memo and including a review of the action items S mentioned in the ABS report. Thrower said that the ABS report is not a foundation document. He said some of the ideas from the report can be used in the Strategic Plan and the final product would be sent to the Council. O'Neil asked the Commission if they had any additional comments to send to ABS, other than the original list from September 18? If there were no other comments, O'Neil would contact ABS and request for them to finalize their report. This will take about 30 days for completion. The Commission agreed they had no additional comments. Staley said some of the statistics for the numbers employed by the University of Iowa were incorrect. f. Runway 07 project - Earth Tech contract— O'Neil said he was hoping to have the Earth Tech contract ready for approval. He said he had just received the first draft yesterday and he and Dulek had not had an opportunity to completely review it. O'Neil said he had read through the contract and there were several areas that needed clarification. O'Neil said he would hope to have the contract ready for the December Commission meeting. Because Earth Tech's fee would be over$100,000,an independent cost estimate will be required. If possible, this could be done in-house through the Public Works Department. If they can not do the estimate,another engineering firm will need to be hired. g. FY 2005 AIP projects — O'Neil said confirmation of the FAA-funded capital projects is required annually. Each project must have a data sheet on file, outlining the project, preferred date of completion and cost. Most of the projects are on file. O'Neil said he would like to add an asphalt overlay project for part of Runway 12. This project would receive priority for the Airport's entitlement funds if a grant was not received for the Runway 07 project. O'Neil read ' a list of the projects now on file with the FAA. Staley made a motion for a resolution to approve the list of FY 2005 FAA AIP projects. Hartwig seconded the motion and at roll call vote, it was approved 3—0. CHAIRPERSON'S REPORT: Thrower said he would like to officially welcome John Staley to the Commission and he looked forward to working with him. COMMISSION MEMBERS' REPORTS: No reports were given. ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT: O'Neil said that the Council had advertised for Commission members and the new members would be appointed in January. A letter was sent to the FAA concerning decommissioning the NDB. There was a letter in the packet from a woman whose father was one of the first airmail pilots to be based on the Iowa City airmail route. She also sent a picture of the Iowa City Airport,dated 1927. O'Neil sent her a thank you letter. S 4 The National Association of State Aviation Officials will hold their national meeting in Des 1110 Moines in 2005. O'Neil suggested the Commission consider changing their by-laws and reducing the Commission term from six years to four years. He said potential Commission members have told him that six years is a long time to volunteer for. O'Neil said he would meet with the City Manager and the Finance Department on November 17 for the initial review of the budget the Commission submitted from their October meeting. O'Neil suggested meeting with FAA officials in Kansas City sometime after the first of the year to discuss the Runway 07 project. This could be scheduled after the grant is received. The Commission could also discuss completion of the EA. Jay and Mary Honek, aircraft owners and hangar tenants at the Airport,would like to try to save the United hangar. They are also writing a history of the Airport. Their web site is alexisparkinn.com/the iowa city airport.htm SET NEXT MEETING: The next regular Airport Commission meeting is scheduled for Tuesday,December 9,2003,at 5:45 p.m. ADJOURNMENT: ' The meetin! was adjourned at 7:16 p.m. 0110,1 AgOrle Ba Or Thrower, Cha?,erson S 5