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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2001-03-01 Minutes• • • • t MEMBERS PRESENT: STAFF PRESENT: OTHERS PRESENT: Wallace: McKINNEY• WALLACE: MINUTES OF THE AIRPORT BOARD March 1, 2001 Charles Wallace, Rick McKinney, Frank Burggraf, Frank Sperandeo, Mike Andrews Alett Little, Dale Fredenck, Louise Powers Terry Collier -tenant; Jim Bell -tenant, John Kalagias-Air Museum; Pam Baldridge-Paddock Grill; Ken Schossow-Wings Avionics, Inc.; Matt Wagner -NW Ark. Times; Matt McGowan-Moming News; John P. Ross -Ross Executive Aviation Item #1: Call to Order. Stated he would like to make some changes to the agenda. He explained the City's Nomination Committee had met and had removed the selection of two new members for the Airport Board from their agenda. The University had not named their nominee for the Airport Board. They have now made their recommendation of Mr. Otto Loewer, Dean of Engineering. Copies of the new Policies and Procedures for the Airport Board has been set before each Board member. New applicants for the additional memberships are Terry Collier, Dave Bowman, and Dwight Talburt. The revised Policies and Procedures grandfathered -in the two members that live outside the City, but in the future Board members must live inside the City limits. Kevin Santos (on nomination committee) was open to consider previous applicants and Chairman Wallace asked attendees to contact anyone that had previously applied to tell them to re -apply .quickly. He stated the two additional members should be appointed by the next meeting in April. Commented on the lack of support from the Chamber of Commerce for the Airport Board membership to include persons from the county. Said the Chamber representatives saw that as a lack of consistency of City committees to allow members from the county on the Airport Board, but they would support anything they could at Drake Field. The Chamber's Transportation Committee had seen the Drake Field video and had nice comments. Y�y • Item #2: Minutes of the February 1, 2001 meeting. A motion to approve the minutes as written was made by Mr. McKinney and seconded by Mr. Burggraf. The motion carried. -1- MAR.I, Zoe! • • • • WALLACE: LITTLE: Item #3: New Business. Announced a minor change to the agenda. The restaurant, Item 3.a., will be removed from the agenda and a committee of Mike Andrews and Charles Wallace will meet after the Airport Board meeting with Alett and Pam Baldridge to discuss getting a restaurant at the Airport. Commented she had been working with American Airlines and would like to make an announcement. She had, just received an e-mail from American that American Airlines has named Drake Field as an alternate airport for XNA and hoped that would open the door to work with other airlines. b. Report on Sunscreen Locations Discussed proposed locations for sunscreens: west of the FBO and north of the above ground fuel farm on the existing aircraft ramp; north of Wings Avionics shop; the old fuel farm location; on the ramp south of the Air Museum; and south of the terminal. Asked for comments from the Board on the locations, stating they would like to narrow it down to just two. FREDERICK: Answering Mr. Burggraf, some sunscreens are all open with just a roof, some are partially enclosed. Huntsville's are all enclosed except the doors and their cost was approximately $60,000. They don't have to go through Large Scale Development, and other things to build as we do. Answering Mr. McKinney, the ramp west of the FBO is designated as general aviation parking and we would have to have the FBO's concurrance to use that ramp. That would be a prime location as the FBO could work with pilots wanting to overnight. Answering Mr. Sperandeo, the sunscreens would have to be bid out. The last t -hangars we built cost around $260,000, and each door cost about $20,000. Answering Mr. Schossow, we are looking for a more immediate location with less construction preparation than the area north of the existing t -hangars. LITTLE: WALLACE: The sunscreens can't be classified as movable buildings and they will have to go through the City's regular process. The type of sunscreen she had described to Planning was similar to a carport. Those will less expensive to build than the t -hangars. A comment sheet will be placed in the Pilot's Bnefing Room. Said she would like to talk to each Board member individually on the locations and come back with what is best. This means we have entertained anoterpossibility for growth and expansion and asked the sunscreens to be placed on the agenda next month. b. Report of Drainage in T -hangars. -2- • • • • • LITTLE: BURGGRAF: LITTLE: BURGGRAF: FREDERICK: LITTLE: BELL: SPERANDEO: McKINNEY: Although t -hangars "F" and "G" were engineered and there is concrete curbing at the south end there is still some drainage that effects a lot of tenants. The elevation, the surface, the buildings were all engineered and even a burm was constructed for the specific purpose of routing drainage. Stated she had been in contact with Wayne Jones of McClelland Engineers, and he had given five alternatives. Most of them are fairly expensive, and stated she was looking ways to repair the situation. The engineers have looked at the problem. We're disappointed we have the problem, but we are committed to getting it fixed. That is what they were hired to do. We may need to get some consultants here and file a suit against somebody. The ramp was originally designed by McClelland Engineers years ago with crowns so that hangars could be added later. They have committed to be here the next time it rains to look at the problem. We are talking about McClelland's in two ways. They engineered our hard surface in the beginning, laying it out with crowns so that we could add t -hangars later. We have now added the t -hangars and used the same consulting engineering firm. It may, or may not, require additional funds to remedy the situation. Said it was lousy engineering, plain and simple. When that ramp was completed in1982-1983, it had waterlines, sewerlines, manholes all installed with the idea they would feed hangars built in those areas. Said he not discussed it with the engineers, but it was reasonable to assume the ground had settled. The end walls on the south end of the units had a foundation cut out and concrete poured in with curbs for the water. Answering Chairman Wallace, the contract says engineering and design and didn't know if it specifically said drainage, but drainage was considered. Water doesn't go all the way to the center, because of the crown. It begins about 12 ft. to 15 ft. into the hangar and flows from the south through the units and out the north end, running about 3/4" deep. It goes on out, flows, doesn't pool there. It doesn't take a heavy rain to drain through the hangars. Mentioned there are no grates on the north end. 14, Said'engineers carry professional liability insurance for this type of thing. BOARD CONSENSUS: The Airport Board feels they would like a response from the engineers, with a fix that would not require funds from the Airport. -3- 1 SCHOSSOW: Indicated t -hangar "E" also had the same problem, with little rivers running • through the bays. • • SPERANDEO: Wanted the bring several items up under New Business. He wanted the Airport to considered overhauling the sliding gate to the t -hangars. LITTLE: Explained staff is building a new gate. During construction there were several accident related to the current gate. SPERANDEO: Wanted the Airport to tile the floor to the restrooms (by the t -hangar complex), saying he believed there was a health problem. He though the construction crews had trashed them. WALLACE: Stated these were maintenance problems and Ms. Little had noted them. LITTLE: Item #5: Other Business. a. Update on City Council Action Large Scale Development -Task Orders #3, 4, 5, and 6 were all brought before the Board together and they did go on to City Council. Those are items of work for McClelland Engineers. Task Order #3 is to prepare the Large Scale Development for the work we will be doing on the field for the first phase of the Land Use Plan. That includes the areas for several hangars and area we are working on with the Forrest Service. It is part the way through the review process. Two comments from Plat Review were they wanted to make sure the Airport Board was aware of the plan and of the sidewalk requirements. Said she had assured them the Airport would place funds into the Airport's Sidewalk Fund. They were wanting a $5,000 contribution and she had told them the Airport would do it on a per square footage and had agreed to 1.41 cent per sq. ft. of building or hard stand constructed. She stated she had also agreed to take Airport money and put it in the Airport's Sidewalk Fund at the time the Building Permits are pulled on each project. This is a two year plan and didn't want to tie up the money now. The Superior hangar is Task Order #4. The Planning Commission will meet on the fourth Monday in March. She said she would try to add the sunscreens to the Large Scale Development if they could use the areas that are already paved and save the engineering cost. Responding to Mr.McKinney's comment that one of the City alderman had made the suggestion that they would look into an Ordinance that would allow non-productive sidewalk funds to be applied to around schools, and hoped that was something the Airport could do. -4- • LITTLE: Stated she didn't think we could take the Airport's money off -field, and if the • Airport had to put in a sidewalk later, she wanted to have the funds available. • • WALLACE: Pavement Maintenance -Task Order #8 has been sent to Don Harris at the FAA (Ft. Worth) and we are waiting for his Written Notice to Proceed. SW Bell Easement was passed by the City Council and SW Bell is processing the funding for us. Stating he couldn't think of anything that created more unhappiness than being told what you could keep, or not keep, in your hangar, so before going on to Marketing, he would like to propose an informal session to discuss a "Pride in Airport" movement. Especially on municipal airports, this unhappiness usually starts with the Airport Management or the Fire Marshall which develops into a long lists of rules. He proposed this informal session at lunch, with no action taken, on Tuesday, March 13", at 11:30 at the Paddock Grill in Greenland. FREDERICK: b. Marketing. Explained they had a number of interesting contacts in February. One such visit was while Alett, Tonya and he had been in Ft. Worth attending the FAA Conference, they had the opportunity to go visit with a Lear Jet repair company. The contact came to us from a local operator in Northwest Arkansas. Although the company is comfortable in Dallas with their business, they also travel around to work on jets and they would like to move to a more rural setting to raise their children. They will be in Hot Springs next week and will come and take a look at Drake Field. He then gave a summary of the Marketing Report (copy in the agenda package). Stated he had been in touch with Air Force in Little Rock and had encouraged them use Drake Field and they had two day ago. WALLACE. Commented on the trend for pilots in training from the middle -east to come LITTLE: to the United States for their training. • Presented a copy of a layout from the Forest Service and what they are proposing. They want quite a bit of property. They have called with additional questions. Their decision date is mid-March. SCHOSSOW: Stated he had talked to the FAA reording the training of European pilots. Theii ILS is going away and now they don't have the facilities to train the new pilots. Stated that Wings had a former FAA employee and that maybe Wings could subcontract the maintenance on the equipment. -5- • 1 • LITTLE: McKINNEY: FREDERICK: SPERANDEO: BURGGRAF: SCHOSSOW: WALLACE: Said she had discovered the information regarding the MLS from the FAA in Oklahoma City was inaccurate, and had talked to Gary Rixsman with the FAA in Washington D.C. to help resolve the MLS problem at Drake Field. The Airport has placed an ad in a new Arkansas aviation publication called "Fly Low". Answenng Mr. Burggraf's question regarding Drake Field becoming a reliever airport, it is the responsibility of the airlines to get their passengers to this airport. Stated there were 26 MLS locations in the United States, but only 6 to 8 are in use at one time. Said the ROTC asked to use the facilities for a two hour event bringing in a C-130 which would involve the local media and approximately 100 attendees. They will offer tours of the tower. Stated he would like to table the "Open House" until later. Commented on the aviation articles he had submitted to be placed in the agenda and the trends in aviation reflected in those articles, calling attention to the article on electronics with a demonstration flight with a12 year old. Mentioned Kelner Turbine was still interested in Drake Field and reducing of the size of their requested facility got them below the requirement of the sprinkler system They are also being encouraged to stay at their current location. Stated that British Petroleum had visited Drake Field yesterday. Things are progressing on the fuel farm. Reminded the Board that the April meeting would be long as it would be their Airport Board Orientation meeting, beginning at noon. Meeting adjourned at 3:07 p.m. 42-170 Frank Burggraf, Secretary % Date -6-