ASHLAND AIRPORT COMMISSION
November 4, 2003
MINUTES

MEMBERS PRESENT: CHAIRMAN PAUL ROSTYKUS, BOB SKINNER, FBO, , BRITTANY WISE, BRENT THOMPSON, ALAN DEBOER, RICHARD HENDRICKSON, ANN SKY, WILLIAM SKILLMAN, LINCOLN ZEVE, PAUL WESTERMAN, CLAUDIA STOCKWELL
STAFF: PAULA BROWN, DAWN LAMB
MEMBERS ABSENT:

1. CALL TO ORDER: 10:00 AM

2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: October 7th minutes approved with changes.

3. Public Forum:

4. OLD BUSINESS: Welcome New Commissioner Paul Westerman

A. T-Hangar Request for Proposal - Options for Construction
The Request for Proposals is in the editing phase. After a draft is done Brown will email to the commissioners for comments. Commissioners will have about a week for reviewing before final RFP is sent out. Financing is still up in the air. Tuneberg is still soliciting to some local banks for better rates. Two local banks have been solicited, Bank of America and Bank of the Cascades. To repay the loan, staff would like to consider implementing pre-signed 10 year leases. Base the pre-paid lease on a $240 per month lease or do a five year lease at $240 a month rate with a 3% additional cost. This will decrease the payoff time on the loan saving the 5.5% interest. The loan request is being advertised as a $300,000.

The RFP requires about four weeks advertising, then engineering and permitting will take through winter and construction should begin around March or April. The construction should be complete prior to summertime. The footprint should support 12-14 t-hangars, the more t-hangars, the more rent.

The commission will need to consider whether or not they would like more t-hangars built at the airport in the future. It will be a consideration for the master plan. The only build ready area at the airport right now is down adjacent to the taxiway next to Sky Research. That is where the fill was taken from the new taxiway and the t-hangar building area.

Rostykus asked staff to double check with Dave Hard, Fire Marshall on the addition of more fire hydrants at the airport.

Action: Staff will complete the draft RFP and email it to commissioners for review.

B. Sub-committee Report on Lease Review, Commercial Use & Rates
Rostykus presented the subcommittee's report on hangar sizes and locations, SASO fees, Commercial use, Aircraft Storage and Privately owned hangars.

Sizes in the Jack Day row are locked in and anyone applying must build to these measurements: Spaces #2 & #3 are to be 60 feet wide by 80 feet deep with 8 feet between the hangars. There will need to be further discussion to establish vehicle access and parking. The area adjacent to the taxiway will be reserved for commercial hangars.

Lease Option C gives a gives a minimum size requirement for a 60X40 hangar size. Subcommittee requested increasing this size to 60 X60. Commission discussed changing the requirement to a square footage instead of a dimension. Zeve felt limiting the size of the hangar could deter future income at the airport. DeBoer felt there would always be business opportunity for aircraft owners wanting to store aircraft outside of California to avoid taxes. These owners would want to have hangars for the first year.

SASO Fees

The Subcommittee recommended the following options:
-All SASO Operations (hangar-based commercial operations) pay a SASO fee based on hangar footprint.
-Recommend that SASO fees be uniformly calculated.
-Recommend that SASO fees be based on hangar footprints times 1.0 - 1.6 times 17¢. Commission to establish exact multiplier (1.0 - 1.6)
-Define a hangar keeper as any hangar lease holder with 2 or more non-owned airplanes in the hangar.

Commission discussed these options. The idea of collecting 10% of the rental income also came up. Staff and some commission members do not support this concept due to the diligence of auditing the owners. The number of non-owned aircraft in the hangar makes as easier defining line. The charge would be for the aircraft over two, so the SASO fee would begin with the rental rate on the third aircraft. This will limit the amount of hangar keepers at the airport because most of the hangars cannot fit that many aircraft.

There are eight or so different SASO categories including the hangar keeper category. The fee structure should address all these different types.

Whichever matter of fee structure is chosen it will still be difficult to enforce and police the usage at the airport. Stockwell commented that she is in support of the fees for airport use but does not want to create a nightmare of policing. A.Sky felt that some weight should be given to number of employees. Rostykus wants to be sure whatever is decided that the commercial and empty hangar clauses in the lease are updated. Zeve still wants to encourage business at the airport even if it is just one hangar owner renting out. There needs to be some equity.

Action: Rostykus will create a spreadsheet that reflects what costs would be associated with different calculators as well as different size hangars and email it to the commissioners prior to the meeting for review.

C. Master Plan - Update
Century West Engineering conducted the first kick-off meeting with staff on October 28th. The meeting outlined the goal, time schedule and requirements. Rostykus and Zeve were present representing the Airport Commission's interest. Century West is now in an information gathering process and will be working with staff to research changes in the airport since the last Master Plan was complete. They expect to have a public meeting in January where they will present the first draft of the plan. A survey will be distributed to pilots and other interested parties. Staff will post the survey on the web and do an article about the master plan update. Brown expects two public meetings to be held at the airport and the report will need to be taken before Council for adoption and there could even be a Council study session for Century West to present the report in more detail.

Action: Staff and members will keep Commission up to date on progress.

D. Taxiway Conflicts
This continues to be a problem. The FBO office has talked to all delivery people they can catch and Sky has sent notices to all their suppliers stating that the taxiway is off limits and to use the new access road. There is more signage to be put up and Brown will call the Street Department to have this made a higher priority. A.Sky requested two signs, one that reads "Deliveries Only" for the access road and another that reads "Aircraft Only" for the taxiway. There will be a learning curve for the road since it is new. Brown wants to be careful not to oversign the airport. Skinner suggested getting a card operated automatic gate. It would cost a few thousand dollars. DeBoer felt that the airport should remain open and hospitable and we accept that there will be occasional conflicts. Rostykus feels it is more than just driving on the taxiway, it is also people parking their cars. Skinner has been working with FedEx to keep them off the taxiways. A.Sky has been asking other small airports how they deal with these situations. Palo Alto is a good example and they have been growing. Brown asked A.Sky to bring back some pictures of their signage for examples.

Action: A. Sky will do wording for a sign and get it installed on the lamp post as soon as possible. Brown and Rostykus will review the wording prior to installation. Brown will work with Street Department for all other signs.

4. NEW BUSINESS:

5. AIRPORT MANAGER REPORT/FBO REPORT/AIRPORT ASSOCIATION:

A. Status of Airport, Financial Report, Review of Safety Reports
A.Sky asked Brown to bring in a disbursement record of how the money that is collected from the airport is used. Commission would like to see a quarterly report from staff.

Skinner asked for direction in helping put in complaints about Yellow taxicab service. They are very unreliable. Brown will check with the City Attorney on how to handle this. Zeve asked if a loan car or a crew car could be available. Skinner had very bad situations happen when they tried that before. He will not endorse a crew car. Commission suggested contacting the chamber of commerce to encourage other companies, hotels especially to do a shuttle service from the airport. Car rental is available every day, Enterprise has been very reliable and Skinner Aviation supplies vehicles from Butler for rentals also.

6. NEXT MEETING DATE: DECEMBER 2ND, 10:00 AM

ADJOURN: Meeting adjourned at 11:30 AM

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