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HomeMy WebLinkAbout04-08-2004 Airport Commission Meeting Minutes MINUTES ir IOWA CITY AIRPORT COMMISSION THURSDAY,APRIL 8,2004—5:45 P.M. IOWA CITY AIRPORT TERMINAL CALL TO ORDER: Chairperson Hartwig called the meeting to order at 5:47 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Randy Hartwig,John Krstenansky,John Staley, Daniel Clay, Carl Williams MEMBERS ABSENT:None STAFF PRESENT: Sue Dulek, Ron O'Neil O"HERS PRESENT: None RECOMMENDATIONS TO COUNCIL:None APPROVAL OF MINUTES: The minutes of the March 11,2004, Commission meeting were approved with minor corrections. REVIEW OF EXPENDITURES: O'Neil reviewed the check requests for April with the Commission. PUBLIC DISCUSSION—ITEMS NOT ON AGENDA: Kim Brogan-Coleman presented information to the Commission concerning the establishment of a flight school and flying club at the Iowa City Airport. She said she is interested in leasing the office space at 1701 South Riverside Drive. She proposed a 2-year lease. Hartwig said if the Commission was interested, it would be on the agenda at the next meeting. Brogan-Coleman said she would like to be able to get started as soon as possible. Clay asked if waiting for a month would give Brogan-Coleman enough time to get started by June 1? She would like toget started as soon as possible. She said she is not asking for upgrades from the Airport. She would fix the building up at her own cost. Williams asked O'Neil how soon a lease could be scheduled? O'Neil said he could start on a lease tomorrow. He will develop a lease and have it reviewed by Dulek. He would send it to the Commission as soon as it is ready and schedule a meeting. Brogan-Coleman said she had a concern that if this flight school were successful,there would be no place for her to move to when the United hangar is moved or torn down. She said if it becomes successful,she would be hopeful the Commission could find some space for her to continue at the Iowa City Airport. UNFINISHED ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION/ACTION: • No items were presented. 1 ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION/ACTION: a. Environmental Assessment project—O'Neil said there was a letter in the Commission packet that included the final comments from the FAA for the preliminary draft. Joe Trnka, from H.R. Green,said almost all of the comments had been addressed. O'Neil said he contacted the FAA and discussed the report. As soon as the report is ready, a public meeting will be scheduled to received comments. A 30-day public notice is required. When the comments are received and incorporated into the report,the contract with Earth Tech for the runway design can be signed. b. Obstruction mitigation project-O'Neil said he is working with Stanley on the contracts for the tree removal and obstruction lighting. He said there are some things he needs to review with Dulek and also needs to incorporate the City's insurance requirements. In order to meet some of the environmental requirements,the tree removal project may have to wait until fall, after the nesting season for the Indiana bat. Krstenansky said he knows the homeowners of the obstructions have been notified. He asked what will happen if they chose not to cooperate? O'Neil said the obstructions are a violation of federal airspace. The most critical obstructions will be addressed first and the landowners that are willing to cooperate will be given priority. O'Neil stated that there is not enough funding in this grant to mitigate all of the obstructions. Stanley will concentrate on mitigating as many as possible. �\ c. Aviation Commerce Park(ACP)— The recommendation for a 90-day agreement with I Iowa Realty was sent to the Council. The agreement was not received from Iowa Realty in time to have it on the April 6 Council agenda. It will be on the Council agenda for April 20. Staley asked when the 90-day period would begin? O'Neil said that their time would start as soon as the agreement was signed. Clay asked O'Neil if he had a chance to read the executive summary of Iowa Realty's marketing plan? O'Neil said he had read it and it was fairly general and similar to the original plan. O'Neil said the appraisal for the ACP has been updated and the Commission received a copy of the update. O'Neil said that when he spoke to Casey Cook of Cook Appraisals, Cook was optimistic that the commercial property market was going to be very active this spring and summer. Iowa Realty seemed confident that something positive would happen with the ACP in the next 90 days. Williams said that in addition to the appraisal, it might be a good idea for the Commission to canvas some developers to see what they thought the value of the property may be and what it would take to market the property. Clay asked how they would go about doing that? Williams said that could be something Commission members do or O'Neil could do. He said that he thought that if local developers were contacted,they would be willing to give their opinions on what would make this development go. He said he thinks this is what Iowa Realty has in mind. They will meet with developers. Hartwig said that is what he would expect from Iowa Realty. • 2 Clay said the Commission should start thinking about what they need to do in case they are I ( not satisfied with Iowa Realty at the end of the 90-day agreement. Williams said he does not think it would be fair to have something in place in case Iowa Realty doesn't produce. He said that is not showing good faith in theft marketing program. O'Neil suggested inviting Iowa Realty to the May meeting to give the Commission a more detailed marketing plan. d. Runway 07 project—Earth Tech- O'Neil said this will be on the agenda as a permanent agenda item until the project is completed. The contract with Earth Tech will not be signed until the EA public meeting is completed. e. Strategic planning—O'Neil said that at the last meeting,the Commission decided to find a facilitator to assist them with the initial phases of the plan. He said the Commission members were going to bring names of potential facilitators to this meeting. O'Neil said he has two people for consideration. One person is Forest Holley. He has had a plane based at the Airport for a long time. Another possibility is Jeff Davidson,the City's Transportation Planner. O'Neil said Davidson would have time to do it if the meetings were in the afternoons or evenings. Hartwig asked if there were two Commission members to work with O'Neil to find a facilitator? Staley and Krstenansky volunteered. Hartwig said there are several people at the Airport that would be willing to help with the plan. O'Neil said he included a list in the Commission's packet of entities that could be contacted to assist the Commission. He said the Airport is a countywide asset and the Commission should invite a wide variety of groups to participate. 0 Staley said he would prefer evening meetings. He said the first thing to do is select a facilitator and develop a schedule. Hartwig said he is hoping that by the next meeting, a facilitator will be selected and a schedule developed. Hartwig said that if anyone on the Commission has other names for a facilitator to contact Staley or Krstenansky. Clay said he thinks it would be a good idea to let everyone at the Airport to know the Commission is working on the plan and invite them to participate. O'Neil said that the people based at the Airport are an important group to include in the planning,but he cautioned about having a disproportionate number from the Airport on the planning committee. Clay asked if there was an e-mail list of all the tenants to invite them to participate? O'Neil said he does not have e-mail addresses for most of the tenants. He said one way to contact the community members is through the City's web site. A public notice could be posted on the web site,as well as at the Terminal building. Staley and Krstenansky will contact O'Neil tomorrow and set a meeting time to work on selecting a facilitator. Hartwig said marketing would be a big part of the Strategic Plan. He said the Commission does not have to wait for a Strategic Plan to be completed before working on a marketing plan. Williams and Clay volunteered to be the subcommittee to work on the marketing plan. Hartwig said there are many positive things happening at the Airport, but the general public does not know about them. He said this is part of marketing the Airport. Williams said a good relation with the press is important. • 3 Krstenansky said having community uses at the Airport should be increased. Williams agreed and said he thought there are lots of opportunities to involve the community. e. FY 2005 budget—O'Neil said this was on the agenda at the request of the Commission. Clay said that after the Council voted to reduce the FY 2005 budget by$ 10,000,he thought it necessary to discuss where the cut would come from. He said he has discussed this with O'Neil. One possibility is to have the potential new flight school offset some of the cost. He said a big question mark is the sale of the ACP lots. He said one of the things he did was to go through the ABS report to review their recommendations. He said it was clear from their comments that budget issues were the most important things to address. He said many comments were addressing marketing. Williams said he discussed the budget with one of the Council members and he is waiting for some answers on what actually happened to the$ 10,000. Staley said that the message from the City Manager at the Commission meeting two months ago was that as long as there is General Fund money going to the Airport,there will be political issues out there. So it is important to reduce the amount coming from the General Fund. He said the proposed flight school would make up for over half of the budget cut. Hartwig asked if O'Neil has any specific recommendations? O'Neil said the budget was certified to the State as balanced. The Airport revenue was increased by$10,000. The Commission will need to increase revenues by$10,000,or decrease expenditures by $10,000,or some combination of the two. O'Neil said there is no lump sum on a budget line that the Commission can use to resolve the problem. The Commission was aware last October that the City's budget would be difficult to balance and they cut the Airport operating budget by 8% or about$28,000. Krstenansky said there were two items that have increased substantially. One was the premium for Fire and Casualty insurance and the other was for electricity. O'Neil said the Commission has no control over either one of those items. Bids are received for the insurance and the Finance Department increased the electricity by what they anticipated the rates would increase to. Hartwig asked about the temporary employee position? O'Neil said almost all of the temp's time is spent mowing. The position is 20 hours a week,just during summer months. It usually takes about 30 hours a week to mow the Airport. Hartwig asked how many hours the maintenance person works? O'Neil said it is a full time position. He said it was half time several years ago. After adding four more buildings to maintain, it went to three-quarter time and eventually to full time.The Airport facilities are aging and are requiring more maintenance time every year. Krstenansky said he has discussed the budget with O'Neil and O'Neil said that because of budget constraints, some maintenance items have been deferred indefinitely. Krstenansky said he does not think that is a good idea because it will cost even more to correct those problems if they decline further. O'Neil said there is one project that has been removed from the budget a couple of times. The asphalt around the north t-hangars is deteriorated and needs to be replaced. It is not a grant eligible project. Williams asked how much it would • cost to replace the asphalt? O'Neil said it would cost about$ 80,000 to$100,000. 4 There is$7000 in this year's budget to seal coat some of the asphalt, but that project may I I have to be removed from the budget as part of the$ 10,000 cut. Staley asked if the City has negotiated contracts for supplies,such as lumber or paint,or do departments shop at wherever they think they can get the best retail price? O'Neil said there are some service contracts. The City also has some materials contracts, such as with Office Depot. Staley said he would think there would be some savings citywide in having identified vendors. There may be savings in identifying purchase groups. O'Neil said there are areas where competitive bids are taken,such as for insurance and vehicle fuel. Staley asked about gas and electric rates? O'Neil said he thought the rates given the City are the same as for any large commercial business. Staley said he wondered if the City would be interested in negotiating more contracts to provide cost savings to all City departments. Staley asked Dulek if the City is able to buy through the State? Dulek said they were not. Clay said he thought marketing was going to be an important factor in improving the budget outlook. He said there is nothing included in the budget for marketing and the only mention of public relations related things is in the Airport Manager's job description. O'Neil said it should be part of the Manager's job to provide positive PR for the Airport. Clay asked if, historically,money has been budgeted for marketing? O'Neil said a few of years ago,the Commission included some money in the budget for advertising. There were couple of Commission members that were going to design a marketing campaign, but nothing developed. 410 Clay asked if,other than a lack of marketing funds,there were other barriers to marketing? O'Neil said the basic programs never got started. He said that with marketing, it would cost the Commission money to try to raise more money. The Commission needs to develop a marketing plan and present it to the Council or try to raise private funding. Clay said tenants such as the FBO and the woman that wants to start the flight school should be very interested in marketing the Airport. Staley said there are students in marketing classes at the University that are looking for projects and may be willing to help the Commission with marketing. Clay said he had a marketing class in college once and that is exactly what his class did. Krstenansky will try to make some contacts with the University. Clay asked O'Neil if the Commission has ever discussed changing the Manager's job description to make marketing more of a focus? O'Neil said that has not been a major priority. The Airport is a City department providing a service and has not been actively marketed to the public. He said that in the past,the budget has been used for Airport operations,and there has not been a high priority on marketing. O'Neil said it is part of the Manager's job to be a spokesperson for the Airport. But in the past,the direction has not been to market the Airport as a public service. The FBO was responsible for marketing the aviation services he provided. O'Neil said the groups he has spoken to over the years have contacted him to speak about the Airport.He has not sought out groups to speak to. O'Neil said this could be part of the marketing plan. He said it would be easier for the Manager and the Commission to market • the Airport if there is a plan to go by. 5 Clay asked how critical is it to have a full time maintenance person? He asked if the maintenance could be cut to half time and use the money for marketing? O'Neil said there would be an immediate reduction in services. O'Neil said the maintenance position was moved to full time for several reasons. One was the increase in the number of buildings to be maintained. Mother reason was to retain a good employee. His experience had been that if a half-time worker was a good worker,they usually moved on to a full time job as soon as they could find one. Continuity is not as critical for some tasks,but it is necessary to have a good worker available during the winter months and for emergencies. O'Neil said the current maintenance worker, Gerry Kaefring, is an excellent worker and is able to repair many things that would normally have to be contracted out. O'Neil said that the next maintenance person might not be as skilled,but that is always the chance you take. Hartwig asked if O'Neil had looked into contracting out the snow plowing? O'Neil said that when he started at the Airport,the previous Manager had arranged for an outside contractor to plow around the buildings. O'Neil said dependability was a problem and as more buildings were added, cost became an issue. O'Neil said he has always plowed snow himself and either had contracted or city employee help. O'Neil said there is also a question of liability. He does not allowed a non-city employee to be on the runways or taxiways without being accompanied by himself or the maintenance worker. Williams said he is optimistic about ways to raise funds for the Airport. He said it is important to watch spending, but he said the Commission must be careful not to cut out too much. O'Neil said that he has always been careful about spending and has been trying not to spend any more than is absolutely necessary. Clay asked what would happen if half the Manager's position would be for marketing and the other half would be for other administrative duties? O'Neil asked if Clay wanted to have a half time manager? Clay said no, he wanted to know what would happen if the half the manager's time was dedicated to marketing? O'Neil said having someone putting in 15 to 20 hours of marketing a week would be beneficial. He didn't know what would be cut out and how that would affect the Airport. O'Neil said the other duties would have to be prioritized. Because there are only two City employees at the Airport,when it snows,both employees need to be available for 10 to 12 hours to clear the snow. O'Neil said if he has other meetings scheduled when it snows,he either takes a break and goes to the meeting,or,more likely,the meeting has to be rescheduled. Staley said that after listening to the discussion,he agrees with Williams that the best solution is to try to grow the revenue. Staley asked about the interfund loan line item? O'Neil said that is paying back loans for the last four hangar buildings. Staley said if lots are sold in the ACP,the hangar loans could be paid off and that would go a long ways toward reducing the deficit in the operating budget. O'Neil said the original idea for the ACP was to lease it on long-term leases and have a perpetual income for the Airport. Leasing has not worked and that is why it was decided to sell the property. Clay asked if it was possible to restructure the Airport debt? O'Neil said the Finance Department regularly reviews the bonds and if it is beneficial,bonds are refinanced. O'Neil said there were several sources used to finance the infrastructure for the ACP. Not all of the funding came from general obligation bonds. 6 Staley said he had another budget question. He wanted to know if the ACP could be rented as agricultural land until it was sold? O'Neil said he had negotiated an agreement just last week to have someone plant hay on a crop share basis. He said it would be minimal because all the fill that was deposited would reduce production. Planting a crop would also meet the DNR erosion control requirements. O'Neil said that the Commission should consider requesting that the Airport budget be changed from an enterprise or business fund to the General Fund. There is an expectation or perception that an enterprise fund will make money or at least break even. Although that is a Commission,Council and FAA goal,the majority of general aviation airports do not realize enough income to be self-sufficient. In the last few years,the Transit Division was changed from an enterprise fund to the general fund. The Commission should look at the positives and negatives of this. O'Neil said that if the Commission is going to do this, it should be requested for the FY 2006 budget year. That planning starts in September of 2004. This could be addressed in the marketing plan. Staley said,to summarize their budget discussion, it doesn't look like there is anything to take from personnel. Supplies are minimal,with little opportunity to cut there. He said the sale of property would help reduce the interfund loans. He said it has been helpful to go through the budget again to become more familiar with it. O'Neil said one of the main reasons the past Commission hired Airport Business Solutions was to use their national experience and provide the Commission with a plan to increase revenues at the Airport. Unfortunately,their revenue ideas were ideas already being done or had been discussed by the Commission and not found to be practical. CHAIRPERSON'S REPORT: Hartwig welcomed Krstenansky to the Commission. Hartwig said he wanted to remind the Commission about the simulator in Building H. It is now operational and they would like to demonstrate it to the Commission. COMMISSION MEMBERS'REPORTS: Clay said that the Commission presented some good ideas. He said the strategic plan and marketing plan are important and the Commission should move forward with their design and implementation. Williams said the Commission should make more of an effort to work with the media and suggested having specific contacts at the different media outlets. Staley said the simulator sounds like it would make a good story. Krstenansky said that he is new but in reading past meeting minutes and through other conversations, he thinks it will be important to develop a better relationship with the Council. ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT: O'Neil said there are a couple of administrative issues he wanted to review with the Commission. One item is setting the Commission agenda. It is the chairperson's agenda. There are some guidelines in the by-laws for having a item placed the agenda. If there is an item that the 7 Commission needs to act on,the Manager places it on the agenda. Otherwise,the Commission members should contact the chairperson for agenda items or bring it up at a meeting to be included in the next agenda. If a Commission member can not attend a meeting, contact O'Neil or the chairperson to let them know. Because it is only a five member commission, it is important to have at least three members available for a quorum. The Council also tracks attendance for boards and commissions. One thing that will reduce the length of the meetings is to monitor the amount of input away from the meeting table. If someone from the audience has something to contribute,they should come to the table and be recognized. O'Neil reminded the Commission that there are open meetings regulations that they need to be aware of. He provided the Commission with a copy of a memo from Dulek. A list of contact numbers was provided to the Commission. O'Neil asked the Commission to contact him if there were corrections to the addresses or phone numbers. O'Neil said he met with Steve Atkins, Dale Helling,Kevin O'Malley,Jeff Davidson,Ron Knoche and Ross Spitz to discuss Mormon Trek and how it interacted with the Airport Master Plan. Atkins is developing a policy for the Council and it will be presented at the April 19th Council work session. O'Neil said he would be at the meeting to answer any airport questions and he invited the Commission members to be there if they had the time. He said that at this point,the Runway 07 paving project would be completed at the end of the construction season in 2006. Hartwig asked what the policy was on the runway closure. O'Neil said that at a CounciUCommission work session,the informal agreement was that Runway 18/36 would not be closed until the work was completed of Runway 07. There is a notice in the packet from the FAA about the NDB being decommissioned. Hartwig sent a letter to Council, outlining the schedule for the strategic plan,the recommendation about Iowa Realty,the review of the budget and what the Commission is doing with the comments from the ABS report. O'Neil said the University of Iowa is getting a different emergency helicopter and will be doing ground school and flight training at the Airport next week. O'Neil said there is a question of whether the new helicopter will fit in the University's hangar at Oakdale. O'Neil said he has always felt that the maintenance facility for the helicopter should be at the Iowa City Airport and this may be an opportunity to have it moved to the Airport. SET NEXT MEETING: The next regular Airport Commission meeting is scheduled for May 13, 2004,at 5:45 p.m. ADJOURNMENT: T e meeting was adjourned at 7:51 p.m. V/ • C Randy H wig,Chairpeaison 8