ASHLAND AIRPORT COMMISSION
June 2, 2015
 
MINUTES
 
 
 
 
Members Present: Bob Skinner, David Wolske, Alan DeBoer, Lincoln Zeve, William Butler, Bill Skillman, Susan Moen and Stefani Seffinger
Staff: Scott Fleury
Members Absent:
Visitors: Doug Burman, Burl Brim and Christopher Corich
 
CALL TO ORDER: 9:30AM
 
1.APPROVAL OF MINUTES: May 5, 2015 motion by Zeve for approval, second by Moen minutes approved as written.  
 
2.Agenda Item Addition:  A discussion regarding the master plan process is added to new business item E.  
 
3.Public Forum: No public discussion.
 
4.OLD BUSINESS:
 
A.Airport Zoning: Staff needs to schedule a follow up meeting with Planning to continue moving the process forward after their previous presentation before the Commission. The overall process outline is to finalize the code language and present language before advisory Commissions for review and recommendations. Then the code and recommendations would be presented before the Planning Commission and ultimately before the City Council for final approval. The State must be notified 35 days prior to the start of a code amendment process.
 
B.FBO Lease: Staff informs Commission that a meeting between Skinner, legal and staff occurred previously to discuss insurance requirements along with living wage. Staff was to provide Legal with currently approved insurance requirements of FBO's working on State run airports and Legal was to contact and discuss insurance requirements with Skinner's insurance agent. Legal to also re-review living wage requirements. Staff to forward the maintenance matrix to Skinner for final review as well.
 
C.AIP Project: No change. Staff is still waiting final invoice request from Knife River Materials for work completed as part of construction project.
 
D.Self Fueling Permit: Staff needs to forward strikethroughs to Brim for final review before discussion with the Legal Department and then the Commission. The main issue now is the requirement of a CDL license to drive onsite. Medford does not require a CDL license and Skinner's staff is not required to have one in order to drive their fuel truck onsite. Skinner considers it a benefit to the Airport to have the fuel truck and if required to obtain CDL endorsements he would most not use the fuel truck anymore. Staff to discuss with Legal.
 
5.NEW BUSINESS:
 
A.Airport Good Neighbor Items: Skinner states the FBO office received a few phone calls regarding the activity on airport day, but once staff explained what was going on, no issues developed.
 
B.Airport Day Wrap Up: Staff and Commission discuss success and possible improvements for next year's event. Butler states he had a great time  and received good feedback from people he spoke to. Their appeared to be lots of people in attendance throughout the day. Brim stated they gave 90 helicopter rides during the event. People enjoyed the skydivers and the skydivers enjoyed both jumps at the airport. They will attend next year if asked. Commission mentions better communication and coordination should occur if they are to attend next year. The smoke jumpers museum display was  big draw. The food truck worked well for lunch and next year a different breakfast caterer will need to be obtained as they will no longer be providing pancake breakfasts. The CAP monitoring and marshaling also worked well. Commission talks options for bigger outreach with respect to marketing Airport Day. Staff goes over this year's marketing, which included a Council presentation, newspaper articles, flyers, Main St. banner and mass email distribution. Commission talks about development of a pamphlet with action photos of airplane/helicopter activities to distribute next year. Commission would like to develop a notebook of the "good and bad" to work from for next year's event. Commission would also like to send a formal thank you to all volunteers who helped make this year a success. Butler to work on thank you letter.
 
C.Budget Process Update: Staff informs Commission of Budget Committee meeting that occurred on May 14. Public Works presented their overall budget during the meeting and now the final steps include Council approval at the June 16 and subsequent June 30th meeting. There were no specific questions regarding the airport budget requests. The budget includes 20k per year for general facility maintenance and improvement projects along with an increase in the Commission line item for Airport Day planning. Staff to provide the Commission with a quarterly budget update to include expenditures and revenues.
 
D.Electrical Improvements: Staff informs Commission about discussion of electrical improvements to the bank of vintage enclosed hangars. A tenant contacted staff about the current electrical service capability. A couple tenants on the east end have electrical that comes from one meter. The tenant would like his own service. Staff informed him of the development to put the service packs on the end of the hangars and the potential to install a channel system that allows for wiring to each individual hangar. Commission would like to see two potential options discussed at the July meeting. One option being all electrical service run from one meter and a surcharge added to the monthly billing and the other option is development of a channel system with each tenant obtaining a meter if they so choose. Staff to work on bringing this information back to the Commission next month.
 
E.Master Plan Update: Christopher Corich from WHPacific in attendance. WHPacific does airport master plans and Corich can answer questions from the Commission if they have any. Commission would like to understand master plan update process. Staff describes overall process of the master plan update. The process includes releasing a qualifications based selection proposal, scoring responses, selecting a preferred consultant to perform scoping and project cost for update, conducting an independent fee analysis, awarding contract and then scheduling project kickoff. Staff and Commission discuss important connection between the master plan/airport layout and current process to update the overlay zoning code. Staff sees this project as more of an update to the current plan and not a full blown new plan as operations have not changed dramatically since 2005. The AIP project list and cost estimates should be updated, any new FAA requirements should be added and the tie into the planning code should be referenced. Commission questions Corich on estimated time to complete master plan update. Corich states a minimum of six months to one year will be required to complete update and meet FAA requirements. Staff states one new requirement will be for the Airport GIS survey. The FAA requires this site survey in order to develop a digital database of all airports and their surfaces. Corich mentions the legislature is discussing a aviation fuel tax increase. The fuel tax would only affect aviation users and would help bring back FAM grants and support infrastructure improvements. Commission discusses means to support the passage of the fuel tax increase bill.
 
Motion by DeBoer: The Commission send a letter of support for the aviation fuel tax increase bill to the Joint Ways and Means Committee.
Second by Butler, all approved.
 
Staff to draft a support letter and forward to Commission for review and approval prior to signature by Butler.
 
6.AIRPORT MANAGER REPORT/FBO REPORT/AIRPORT ASSOCIATION:
 
A.Status of Airport, Financial Report, Review of Safety Reports: Updates are mainly regarding maintenance related issues (see B).
 
B.Maintenance Updates: Skinner informs Commission the noise abatement sign at the south end is down, the fire extinguishers are still not installed, some tie down chains need to be replaced and weed abatement still needs to occur. Commission wonders if Skinner can take the lead on some of these items. Skinner states only with prior approval by City staff. Commission would like to see some language additions to the lease that give Skinner ability to remedy certain maintenance related issues. Staff to discuss with the Legal Department. Overall site mowing needs to occur prior to fire season and the Commission would also like to see the mowing area expanded. Parks only mows directly around the runway and bio-swale area. Staff to see if Parks can extend the mowing area. If not a contract for site specific mowing will need to be generated. Staff will also see if the Street Department has plans for site mowing similar to previous years. Staff informs Commission of the development of a "rotation list" of contractors to perform various services for the City. These services will include electrical, plumbing, roofing, engineering and general handyman services. Development of an on call rotation list will give the City flexibility to obtain these types of services over the next biennium. City staff is constrained with what it can currently accomplish in short time frames due to the procurement process and development of the rotation list will dramatically shorten the time frame to accomplish simples tasks.
 
C.Brown Bag: No update.
 
D.Transportation Commission: No update.
 
E.Medford Airport: No update
 
F.Action Item List: Updated as requested.
 
G.Airport Day/Marketing:
 
H.Airport Users Group:
 
OTHER:
The meeting of the JC airport commission is the third Monday of the month at 12:00 PM.
  
NEXT MEETING DATE:  July 7, 2015 beginning at 9:30 AM
 
ADJOURN:  Meeting adjourned at 11:01 AM