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Aviation Advisory Board Minutes - 07/20/2006c � t MINUTES AVIATION ADVISORY BOARD July 20, 2006 PRESENT: CITY CLERK'S OFFICE Date 1 \— a-) -0(A By Timn Vernon Nesmith, Chairman Board Members Sid Gills Capt. Elizabeth O'Malley Brad Altman Jon J. Rivkin Monica Morris City Staff John Burrus I. CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order by Chairman Nesmith at 5:30pm. II. ROLL CALL Members were asked to make sure they signed in for the meeting. III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES The minutes from the May 18, 2006 minutes were made available for all members to review. A motion was made by Mr. Rivkin and seconded by Mr. Gills that the minutes be approved as presented. All were in favor 5 -0. IV. REGULAR AGENDA 1. Municipal Airport Update • Military Airports Program grant application update — Staff has heard no additional information on the MAP application other than that they had moved from the FAA to the Department of Transportation. Staff continues to stay in touch with Congressman Thornberry's office to monitor any progress. • Wright Amendment Update — Ms. Morris reported that she had been contacted by Dale Morris with American Airlines regarding a tentative agreement between American Airlines, Southwest, DFW and Dallas Love Field on the provisions of the Wright Amendment. Mr. Morris was excited to report that this tentative arrangement would continue to protect the air service to small communities like Wichita Falls. There is still come concern AIRPORT ADVISORY BOARD APRIL 13, 2006 Page 1 of 4 11 CITY CLERK'S OFFICE Date 1 \— a-) -0(A By Timn Vernon Nesmith, Chairman Board Members Sid Gills Capt. Elizabeth O'Malley Brad Altman Jon J. Rivkin Monica Morris City Staff John Burrus I. CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order by Chairman Nesmith at 5:30pm. II. ROLL CALL Members were asked to make sure they signed in for the meeting. III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES The minutes from the May 18, 2006 minutes were made available for all members to review. A motion was made by Mr. Rivkin and seconded by Mr. Gills that the minutes be approved as presented. All were in favor 5 -0. IV. REGULAR AGENDA 1. Municipal Airport Update • Military Airports Program grant application update — Staff has heard no additional information on the MAP application other than that they had moved from the FAA to the Department of Transportation. Staff continues to stay in touch with Congressman Thornberry's office to monitor any progress. • Wright Amendment Update — Ms. Morris reported that she had been contacted by Dale Morris with American Airlines regarding a tentative agreement between American Airlines, Southwest, DFW and Dallas Love Field on the provisions of the Wright Amendment. Mr. Morris was excited to report that this tentative arrangement would continue to protect the air service to small communities like Wichita Falls. There is still come concern AIRPORT ADVISORY BOARD APRIL 13, 2006 Page 1 of 4 that other airlines may protest the proposed arrangement but we will continue to wait for a final, approved agreement. • Update on contact with other airlines - Ms. Morris reported that city staff had made initial contact with a letter to Continental Express regarding possible service from Wichita Falls to Houston. On July 19th, Ms. Morris and Mr. Burrus had a conference call with Karen Zachary with Continental Express regarding the possibility of such service. Ms. Zachary explained that due to infrastructure (aircraft availability), Continental would not be able to consider service to Wichita Falls at this time. However, she expressed that Wichita Falls has always been a market they watch and consider. She appreciated us making contact with us them and encouraged us to stay in contact. Mr. Burrus and Ms. Morris may make a face to face visit with Ms. Zachary in Houston in the fall. Ms. Morris also reported that there have been casino charter flights once a month for the past couple of months which appears to be encouraging. She plans on making contact with those charter flight operators to understand their marketing of these flights and how the City can assist in that area, via website postings, etc. Ms. Morris also reported that she will be attending a meeting in August concerning the Fly Texas Initiative in which Austin Bergstrom is leading in an effort to increase intra -state flights direct to Austin from smaller markets like Wichita Falls. This meeting may include the discussion of possible incentive requests in which case would then involve the 4A and 4B boards. • FAA lease — Ms. Morris is in the process of renewing the FAA lease for their office space at Municipal Airport for another 5 years. TSA is also considering relocating in the terminal building which will require some additional renovation work. • Report on terminal vending and advertising — Ms. Morris reported that the City had contacted with a new company, Custom Food Service, for vending service. The machines at the airport are nice, new machines and coffee is again available at the airport. The airports share of this vending is 25% as opposed to the 10% previously. Also, new advertising signage has also been sold in the terminal to Super 8 and Homewood Suites, and the BCI, Hampton Inn in Burkburnett and Wichita Limo have also expressed an interest. The new signage has generated approximately $6,000 for the airport so far and has improved the appearance of the waiting areas. 2. Kickapoo Downtown Airport Results agenda meeting council AIRPORT ADVISORY BOARD of the Master Plan Public Workshop and pending city council item — Ms. Morris reported that after the last advisory board when the board voted to recommend the Master Plan to city for adoption, a public workshop was advertised and held at APRIL 13, 2006 Page 2 of 4 J Kickapoo. A few members of the public came to learn about the plan. The public comment period was held open until July 14th and no public comments were received. An executive summary of the plan has been written for the city councilors along with their copy of the plan and the item it on the agenda for the city council meeting on August 1St Wings Safety Program /Open House event report — Ms. Morris reported that the Wings Safety Program held on June 17th was well attended by over 50 pilots, despite the threatening weather and all of the speakers were excellent. The plan is to have another program in October at Wichita Valley which would get the 6 month rotation back to Kickapoo in April 2007 when the weather should be cooler. An open house was also held that afternoon for the public but very few members of the public attended. • Projects bid results and AIP Funding — Bids for the AWOS were opened in early June with 3 bidders — Marvin Groves Electric, F & W Construction and Vaisala. The low bid was Vaisala for just over $105,000 and was awarded to them at the June 20th city council meeting. The longest part of this project is the acquisition of the FCC licenses so the City has issued a letter of intent (as the AIP grant is pending) to allow them to proceed with those licenses. The Hangar Area Improvement Projects bids were also opened on June 30th. After 3 different companies had attended a pre -bid conference, only one bid was submitted from AUI Contractors from Ft. Worth. The bid was just over $1,600,000 which was several hundred thousand dollars over the engineer's estimate, largely due to the significantly higher cost of asphalt. As this project had already been delayed one year when last year's bid came in high, it was agreed that delaying the project again would not see any better results. Therefore, this bid will also be on the agenda for the August 1St city council meeting for the awarding to AUI. City staff has a meeting with Guillermo Villalobos with the FAA next week to discuss the bid results and 2006 projects. Based on preliminary discussions, staff believes the FAA will award the $1,000,000 AIP funds for these projects and the balance that these projects exceeds that grant award, the remaining balance will be drawn from our 2007 AIP grant. • New equipment purchases — The base station radio used to communicate with pilots on our ARINC frequency stopped working and after being looked at by the local radio shop, was determined to be not repairable. Therefore, a new ICOM radio was purchased for $1,000. Additionally, the APU which was very old had also stopped working and city mechanics determined could not be repaired given the age of the equipment and unavailability of parts. A new APU has been priced AIRPORT ADVISORY BOARD APRIL 13, 2006 Page 3 of 4 based on the other APUs at the airport and the need of transient aircraft and the cost of a new unit will be approximately $6,500. Staff plans to pay for these expenditures from unused building maintenance budget. • Demand for hangar space — Ms. Morris reported that the demand for hangar space continues to grow at Kickapoo and there are currently around 5 -6 aircraft that are being housed in community hangar space, thus demonstrating the need for the upcoming t- hangar project. 3. Other Aviation Items Ms. Morris reported that she had a group of over 30 children from the Burkburnett Boys and Girls Club come to Kickapoo for a tour of the airport. The tour went very well and the children were able to climb inside an aircraft as well as see several landings and take offs of both jets and single engine aircraft in the hour they were there. They were very appreciative and had sent some very nice hand made thank you cards. V. ITEMS OF CONCERN FOR BOARD MEMBERS — • Capt, O'Malley inquired about the status of the proposed new lease and joint use agreements with Sheppard AFB. Mr. Burrus reported that these documents had been given to the City Manager and he would be the one working on those leases. The City Manager may be waiting the results of the MAP application to determine the city's position on the lease. Mr. Burrus will follow up with Mr. Leiker. VI. ADJOURN The meeting was adjourned at 6:25pm. Dr. Vernon Nesmith, Chairman ATTEST: John A. BLWrus, Director of Aviation, Traffic and Transportation AIRPORT ADVISORY BOARD APRIL 13, 2006 1CoW X 09 Date L\ I 1, C(o Date Page 4 of 4