Airport Economic Development Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Okay. All right. Let's see here. Today is July 16. And I'm calling the airport advisory board meeting to order. All right. It's now time for the public. Actually, roll call first. All right. Go there first. All right. Roll call verification quorum. All right. Here. Thank you. All right. Michael Bowden. Here. Kevin Kane. Here. Emmett Dowling is here. Paul Hoftaling. Here. Lyle Martin. Here. Steve Tobin.

Here.

And Jennifer Webb. Excellent. We have a quorum. All right. Didn't always put it in there, but Pledge of Allegiance. Yeah.

It's Justin. Thank you.

There's a copy of the agenda. Everybody take a look at that. Any questions, comments, additions?

We've had requests for some small modifications of the minutes of last meeting. So we can't, if we're going to entertain Those changes, we can't approve them as is. We'll have to approve the minutes next meeting after those changes have been made.

How about the agenda? Everybody take a look at the agenda.

I just asked a question in terms of what were the questions.

Some verbiage around the description of the agenda. residents slash HOA members who attended. I listed it as eight members of the Airpark HOA, and Bron suggests that we change that to simply residents unless they all declared they were

Members of the HOA. I don't think, I mean, that's a small clarification there. I don't want it on record. He has requested it, and his emails have been attached to the minutes there. The one thing I would recommend, there was, I think he highlighted a date for this meeting as being off. By three days, yeah.

My bad.

Yeah, by however many days that was. So that part we can do. Can we approve it with just a small clarification on minutes?

Yeah, that's fine. You do. Yeah, just a friendly amendment to the motion.

Is that done now or do we do that?

Before the minutes would be approved.

Another one more complicated question. one, and that is he wants a better documented what happened during the motion to rescind. It's recorded.

Yeah, it's public record. It's recorded.

No, no, no. He wants on record exactly how that process went through, who said what for the motion, how did it not pass, whatever the votes were, that kind of thing.

I'm not understanding that. Let's put a pin in that for about 10 seconds. The agenda is the number three item on our agenda. Do we have a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. OK. Thank you. All right. Next one is approval of previous minutes. Okay, so did everybody look at the link for the minutes? It's two pages of minutes, it's a couple pages of figures, and it's about 40 pages of emails. Most by Mr. Mincher. So what was the third thing?

There was a motion. to receive minutes. He wants it documented who moved, that it wasn't second, and he wants the result of that motion to be clearly documented. I simply said that it didn't pass. There wasn't a second to the motion. Right. And that was not stated in there. I simply said it didn't pass.

So it dies on the floor, so it doesn't, yeah, that's not.

There is no action taken.

There's not, yeah.

It was a motion brought up, but no action taken.

Do we want to change the, so verbiage of last minutes to reflect more details? Yes.

If you don't mind making a few small changes. I couldn't make it before this meeting. Let's just table approval of the previous minutes. Put those changes in there and then.

Can I ask a quick question? Yeah. This is a procedural thing because typically you just rattle through the previous minutes and the current agenda and it's like boom, boom, boom. but this is one of the first times where we have a question of what's contained in the minutes. Procedurally, do we discuss it, make the changes at this meeting, and then present it at the next meeting for approval, or do we just drop it, change it, and then present it at the next meeting?

I believe it's acceptable to do it either way. You could either... Make a motion to amend the minutes now and then vote to accept the amended minutes if you know what you need to change. But if they need to be amended later, you could accept them now and could amend it at the next meeting. Or you could probably even table the approval of the meetings until they are approved. amended the way you like it. So it just depends on if you're ready to do it now, if you need to wait.

Isn't it not the role of the secretary to prepare the minutes? Yes.

Correct. The approval of the minutes is for the board. So if there's a correction to be made, then the minutes were filed.

They now need to be amended. We've agreed to amend them. I will amend them after this meeting, and we will approve.

And then they could be approved next month.

We will move at this time to table them for approval next meeting with our illustrious secretary revising them, presenting them. Does that work?

Yeah. I'll second that motion. OK. Any discussion?

And there is this whole situation has risen that we probably need to review, somewhat formalize, what have you, how third party input documentation, what have you, is going to be recorded in our meetings officially on the site. be it emails, be it documents submitted and what have you. We need to figure out what that process is so that I can make sure we follow it.

What I recommend is that all that go through Debbie. She can, if there's things... Now, this was just a presentation. It wasn't a public hearing or anything like that. But if there's emails that they want to be... included in the minutes or something like that. You know, we take public comment all the time. Typically for the council, the only time that like an email or public statements are made part of public record at a meeting is if it's a public hearing so it's like a land approval thing because that falls under quasi-judicial uh rules but for this it was a presentation by a resident so um it's more public input um all that stuff is essentially public record anyway, because it's all horrible. But I mean, I probably would defer to Debbie to see like if, if, if they want it specifically attached to the meetings, this, that particular meeting. So if somebody reading the meeting minutes could also look at the emails. Typically that's not done on, on general public comment. And since this board is, Um, I'm trying to think there might've been something with Nassar's, uh, development that, that may have been more akin to a, uh, public hearing, but just in general, like the only time I can remember this board doing something that might've fallen under public hearing category would have been like Nassar's development. Uh, when, when, how many years ago that was, um, those have special rules, uh, Because you can't have, if it's technically deemed a public hearing, you can't have public comment outside of the public hearing. Good point.

So my clarification at this point is, number one, that was his name? He was invited to speak. He put a presentation on the lines and gave it to us. That, without a doubt, gets included as part of the minute. Correct. Yeah, yeah. But there were public comments made during the public comments section. That's part of the recorded meeting. I'm talking more about... You're saying there are people who sent emails after the fact that want to be included as part of the minutes. I'm not saying...

They want those emails, their comments and voice to be put onto record, not necessarily as minutes of the past meeting. Well, that's because... Yeah, and I don't think you can because it wasn't part of the meeting. It was after. They want accountability. They want to say you were apprised via email on this date by this person about this issue and what have you. And they want to hold us accountable later for saying, hey, you didn't pay attention to that.

I would say. That's all by default. Anybody that emails council, anybody. Yes. Yeah, that's all.

It's not part of the last month's meetings because it didn't occur as part of the meeting. So no with getting it added to the meeting.

If non-board people email to AEDAB anytime in the month, I'm going to add you. how is their email recorded into public records so that our future I work in negotiations. Yeah.

Acknowledgement. So the email, when someone sends an email to a public address, that becomes public record.

Yeah.

Right there. Nobody else can see that. It's community.

That's the problem. They have to do it through a core request. Yeah. So it's, you're right. It's not like published. There are communities that do that, but Erie does not, but they want it. Yeah. That's right.

So here's what I'll say. First of all, we just approved an agenda. On this agenda is a hyperlink and all those emails that were included in there. at the box. That's why I said, are we going to get, so going, so going forward, I will email Debbie and Michelle and ask them the question about this very topic and get back to you because I, I agree, you know, um, Anything to be included on the minutes needs to be part of the meeting unless it's... Yeah, they're not asking for the part of the minutes. They're asking for them to be on record and be visible for transparency. Yeah, because that individual has not been able to attend the meeting. No, he's not the only one asking for that. Okay. So I'll email them and I'll get an answer to that. Okay. So going forward, we will have an answer to that. I think that some of the stuff that was attached, you know, the financial figures and such from Mr. Lockheed, that I think was very helpful to include because there's a lot of questions about that. But we'll get an answer on that. And moving forward, we'll figure out, you know, how that's to be handled. And then when you revise the minutes, we'll either have that included or not included.

Okay.

All right.

So based on what you just said, for future emails that come in from anybody in the community regarding the airport that are sent to AEDAB, How will those emails get recorded by the town and become visible to other members in the community?

That's the last part I don't understand.

They don't want to just say something. They want to share information with other people.

Michael, so if I send an email to Mayor Pro Tem Bell, that email is a matter of public record, but it doesn't go as part of any particular town council. And nobody would know that it even existed. Correct, unless they do a Quora request or Freedom for Information, any of that.

I would say somebody's more than welcome to, this has happened before, they either go to social media and say, I sent this email to the AEDAB, Here it is. They can publish it in the daily camera as an op-ed. I mean, they can, there's a number of ways to get it. Like they're looking for visibility, but, but as far as if they just email here, there's no, like I said, a public hearing has a very specific context around it. And that's the only thing where public comment is treated differently because it it's almost like a trial where you have the prosecution and defense and they have to exchange like what do you call it? Discovery. Like they both have to have the same information. You can't surprise present something what they call ex parte communications. Like that, that all has legal ramifications on it. Whereas people just emailing us, it's like, well, Most of that is not seen, and I've probably had.

What will be the mechanism for residents of Erie to provide us input as to how to handle the airport's finances? going forward, because I'm sure that the email we got over the last two weeks, by far, are not the last ones we will receive on this topic.

Public, I mean, everyone gets the email, so public comment and emailing us, I mean, everyone on the board, so...

Right, but they...

If they want to publish outside of that, it's their work product. They can publish it.

Everybody can go look at the recordings of this meeting. Everyone can go look at the minutes. They can't look at the information provided via email to the board.

Yeah, that's not going to change.

There's no agency, no email address they could forward it to that puts it on a Dropbox somewhere that anyone can access.

If there's something that they have that does that, then they're more than welcome to. There's nothing against that.

We have set a precedent by attaching Ron's Previous message. Those minutes are not yet. That was two minutes, but I don't think that was the right way to do that.

But the other thing about this minutes is that since we're going to revise them, we'll get an answer from Debbie and Michelle as to what can be attached, what is the proper thing to do here. And then I will send that message out and let everybody know what that's going to be. Very good. Okay. I just want to do my job correctly.

I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but... Do you need a weapon? Still twitching. Mr. Mincher brought up some really valid points that I think people would... It would be valuable for them to see what information he's put together. And I understand the process and I'm not getting the process. Is there a way that this board could have a drop box where those emails and that information goes that outside people could access that to look at that?

I mean, we can attach documents to the, there, there are the meeting.

There are municipalities that do that. Yeah. Erie does not. That's really a choice of the town attorney whether to do that or not. The process now, anybody could – and this becomes somewhat controversial, but this is just the way it is. Anybody can have access to anything sent to us, assuming it's public information and not confidential, which we don't deal with too much confidential information on this board, but – You send in a quarter request. You could say, I want all the emails from 2026 sent to AED AB and send it in. The town is obligated. We have to figure out, you know, calculation for how much time that would take. There are the town is legally obligate or legally allowed to charge a fee for service because it does take time to do that. Um, so that's where it becomes controversial, I guess. So if, if there's, if there's things that people, individuals that want to send us stuff that want to reach out a wire, wider audience, again, I, I just say, there's nothing that says you can't go post something on a blog or on social media or, uh, in an op-ed, uh, and also send it to us. A lot of people do that. That's the easiest way to do that. But I, but the answer you're probably going to get from the, the, the town attorney and, and, and staff is that, yeah, we're not going to just blanket publish all emails. I think because the, and I know, I think it's Longmont that does this, that you can, there's a system you can go into. You can see every single email, assuming it's not, confidential or attorney client stuff that you can go in there, see anything that anybody sends. Um, we've talked about doing that before. There's an expense to doing that. And then also at least our prior town attorney's opinion was that there's, there's a risk in doing that, that, um, uh, you could potentially have something out there that, that could, um, accidentally disclose confidential information or attorney client information by just having a cart launch out there. So when they do a court request, the last step is it has to be reviewed by the town attorney. And if there's any confidential information or information needs to be redacted, they go through that. Again, I don't think we really deal with anything like that on this board. I have some questions.

Go ahead, Mr. Chairman. If Braun were to come to a meeting and as the three-minute public comment presents a document and asked for it to be included in the minutes We would all decide as to whether to include it. It's not unlike the U.S. Senate. It happens all the time.

Yep.

Included for the record, all vote, yay or nay, and then it gets included. That is one way Braun Mincher could do what he's asking.

Absolutely. Yes, sir.

If Braun can't make it to the meeting, which I met with him, and he says, yeah, I will come to the meetings, but I can't because I can't. No reason, no explanation. Schedule conflict. Yeah, schedule conflict with his wife's work and his kids. Sure. Which is understandable. But if he couldn't, could another person, as part of their public comment, submit Braun Mencher's document for inclusion? So that's what I would suggest. And then we solve the problem.

Yeah, I'll have a conversation with our clerk's office and make sure we talk through what our standard procedure is and what options you all have available to you if you do want to include public comments that you receive in the minutes. And I can bring that.

And I think that goes to your... Yeah, so what would stop me from printing out bronze... Multiple page. I don't think any. And present it in this meeting. I don't think. You say you want it part of the record.

You are a citizen just like anybody else.

Yeah. Okay. So that's a mechanism for us to get that information.

Correct. Because if we do just such all emails end up, you'll end up with a minutes. We got to prove that's 150 pages long.

I'm not sure if minutes are the right way to communicate. They just simply want them on record and. I think they kind of assumed that there was a way if they were on record that you could get at them online, but maybe there isn't except for it.

So I'll take it one further and, and throw this in here. If anybody has a topic that they want included on the agenda and that, then, then let, let me know. or Michael a week prior to our meeting. And then that can be placed on the agenda. And as part of that discussion, there could be, hey, I got this email from so-and-so. And this was the content of the email. This was the gist of it. And therefore, it can then be, I think, that's... You're supposed to be able to include documents, presentations, et cetera, with the agenda. I would, you know... Further, if we're going to put something on there, try and make it concise and a little more to the point.

I do think that, and again, we're probably getting direction from Debbie, but the one thing coming from an outside perspective I think it'd be best to, you know, if it's, if it's not Braun, um, have somebody present that information in public comment and, and can be doing that. Like, I think, it might potentially open up a Pandora's box of people come in and say, here, can you, at your next meeting, can you present this? So I think, yeah. So if it's, if it's coming from the public and it's part of public comment and we get that stuff all the time, people bring in documents here, you know, that they'll come up in public comment, hand it to Debbie and come up, give their comments and that gets all recorded. So, yeah.

Okay. Yes, public comment. I don't think we didn't ask our guest if she would like to do a public comment. Anything else on on minutes? Okay, moving on to public comment.

I believe you came and commented in February at the town council meeting. You look familiar. Would you like to comment this evening?

No, I'm going left here to see what's going on. Okay. I will mention one thing. That is, please don't use social media as a platform for reporting stuff.

Absolutely not.

And the reason is for me, and I know there are others in the air park, I held a clearance and I worked for Lockheed Martin and Lockheed Martin said, you shall not go on TikTok, it's Chinese, Instagram or anything else. I do not exist on social media because I was told never do that. That was good advice. You wouldn't get the message. I wouldn't get the message. I don't give you the message. The message is gone. Social media is a scary thing for people with clearances. There are a number that have been. Lots of aeronautical people at the year park. Social media.

I would like to put on record that any communications to the board through any other means other than physical appearance or through email to the board will not be recognized. We're not going to check. We're not going to react to something posted someplace else. That's an official communication that we're not responsible.

Sorry, let's put a foot in that real quick.

And can I get your name, please? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm Susan House and I do live in the air park.

Excellent.

And I am on the HOA. board but I'm and that's difficult because I'm not representing them my comment last week was that I'm just a widow without a plane and I that there could be a hardship from the fees that wasn't part of the HOA presentation it was just kind of a making it personal I mean I wanted you all to know how it was affecting people throughout the years I think he did bring that up though didn't he Yeah, I did. And thank you all. I mean, I know this is a tough job. And I know there are big bucks involved. Not for any of you. But I really do appreciate your working on this. I'm sure a thankless job, quite all.

Thank you for coming to the meeting and participating in the public comment.

And I'll behave myself and be quiet now.

All right. Thank you very much. You're welcome. All right. General business. Officer reports. Okay. So thank you again, Paul, for running this group for six years. And now it's my turn to do it for next year. So I've been thinking about this a lot lately. The approach to updating the fee structure, initially it was thought that, okay, if we can come up with a new fee structure that makes up the difference and makes up the general fund transfer, that was where it went. And it was said multiple times that this was just a target and not something to be achieved over any short period of time. It was a long-term goal. And it is the goal for that fund transfer to be reduced, in my opinion. If you watch some of the stuff that's going on around town, Centennial Airport, Jet Center, hangers there. I just spoke with a gentleman yesterday. His hangar rent is going up $7,200 a year for just a basic hangar. there, and he's part of a group that's filed the FAA complaint. Those hangars are run by Jet Center, which is an FBO, which is not the airport, but it still falls under the obligation of the airport to be fair and reasonable. The airport itself, per ordinance, is designed to be, you know, self-funding and should balance. And it has been brought up by multiple people, including residents of the of the airpark that, hey, we pay. you know, property taxes. So did some really quick math and you know, it's not gonna be accurate, but 150 homes paying an average of 10,000 a year is 1.5 million. The town gets about roughly 10% of that. So that's 150,000. Now, that goes against a town budget. Sorry, how much, Brandon? Oh, you're probably – 20, 30 million a year? In the general fund, probably 40, 30 to 40. So that's how much that is.

And not anything's coming out of property taxes like school funding.

It's everything. The whole town has to be run off of that contribution. Okay. And then people in the business part pay considerable taxes on their businesses, properties, hangers, and such. And a portion of that goes to the town, too. Now, I'd like to frame that general fund transfer as an investment. It's an investment in the airport. And that investment, according to CDOT, returns $123 million a year in economic impact. So I think that's important to recognize it's been said multiple times. This board has tried to update the ordinance But I don't think it's gotten a lot of traction. I was there when you suggested something at a town council meeting. So I think Jennifer's item later is going to kind of expound on that concept. But, you know, something to think about. And that's all I have to say today on my report. Vice Chairman Uptale.

First thing I would say is thank you very much for stepping up. Glad you're doing it, and I'm glad it's not me. Just very relieved, and I know what you're going through.

You look more relaxed.

I know what he's got to do, and I know what he's going through, so I can appreciate what it is that he has to do before I leave. I would like to make a comment about SM decision recently made by the council. And just for the public record, recognize that it is a huge decision the council made to accept the agreement. I don't know where it is at this point. Presumably at some point, if it hasn't already happened, there will be a land transfer to the town. Part of that land transfer is the parcel of land at the intersection of County line and Arapahoe road on the south east corner of that intersection. It's approximately 30 acres. Yes. That 30 acres along the road and adjacent to the creek. would first and foremost become town property. And then ideally at some point, the thinking would be that that would become, at least part of it, become part of the airport entry. It's huge. It's huge for a number of factors because the proposed road that the consultants said was the number one road comes right through that property. It would have to be part of that property. The town owns the property. You don't need easement rights. You have the rights. You own it. The other thing is that parcel of land has access to an existing taxiway that already goes across the creek. That parcel of land, you can get to the taxiway already. You just have to build a taxiway to get to the taxiway. So the objective of expanding the property that is the airport potentially could happen. And that property is tailor-made for building more hangars, which was part of our proposal to expand the footprint of potential hanger development. You don't have to build a bridge for the planes to get across. It's already there. And that property already has access to that taxiway. The road will come with, but I'm just saying it is a huge, huge development in terms of the potential development, economic development of the airport. And as a side note, like I mentioned, All that property gets developed for hangers. There's no need to have a discussion about the costs we would run with. Not necessarily. That's my report. It's just an update of what I know.

give a brief update to this or just all kind of like people know so um uh and this is for awareness so i can't get into too much details but um we we did pass the agreement um the contract is written in such a way so there is a Um, due diligence time that, you know, the town, the, the properties, uh, go through a phase two environmental study. So, uh, we're sure that everything's okay. There was oil production on a lot of those sites. So we have to make sure if there's a cleanup or anything or nothing unexpected. Um, assuming all that goes through, there is land transfer, and at some point there would be a cash payment from SM to the town. So the caveat to all this, the way... the way the council enacts things can either be, uh, administratively or through ordinance, um, an administrative item would be like, you know, if we, um, you know, hire on, uh, uh company to you know pave the roads or something you know um that's an administrative action um because anytime that the tan the town um sells an asset sells land is done through ordinance uh ordinance for our town charter is subject to a referendum so uh there and if you're familiar with what Happened in Greeley where there was a plan to build a new stadium for the Colorado Eagles. There was a referendum from the citizens to put it to a vote. And the vote overturned the city council in that case. I can say there is a referendum out. that two individuals have submitted to the town. It's been accepted. They're in the process of collecting signatures. I have no idea where they're at. But should that be... accepted, it comes back and really the council has only two options. We can suspend the ordinance or we can agree to put it to a vote. I just learned today that we thought that if it came to that, we'd be able to make the November ballot, but there was a 40-day protest period and We're thinking all likelihood we will we would miss that window. So then it would fall if we if if there were an election that had the L4, it would have to be after it'd be a special election after the November election. So, um, I'll say, I want to be careful. I say, cause I don't want to be electioneering, but it is, it is a thing that we, we, we knew going into that, that potentially could be subject to referendum. Um, uh, I, I've been clear in my public comments that, um, you know, I, I think, uh, I do understand people's concerns with what's going on and, uh, whatnot. But, um, uh, the, the crux of this, the origin of this was, was for the land was for, um, uh, not, and not just the airport land, but there's also a land we, we hope to acquire that's next to the Leone world service center. That's this part of this deal, um, for expansion of public works. So, um, as well as the, the, um, um, monetary compensation uh that you know could potentially help with with the airport or help the road um uh or you know a number of other things so um yeah all that just to say it's not quite a done deal yet i'm always a glass half full full person so um you know i'm hoping uh that you know i realized that there was some level controversy of it because it was you know, tied to the Draco operation. But I, you know, I, my personal belief is that I think it's a great benefit to the town and not just, just for the airport. I think just overall, it's a good deal, which we worked a long time to, to get to that. So I'll keep you informed as far as I know things, but that's, that's where things are at now. So. Thank you.

Secretary Bob. Just two things. One, if anybody wants something part of our next meeting, any next meeting, what have you, they need to be submitted eight days prior to the next meeting because the minute or the agendas will have been submitted. Like in the case here, three days ago, we got something they wanted included. We can't.

it's already been the clerk's office has been very accommodating and making changes inside of the seven. They like to have it seven days and we can't guarantee anything. So sometimes you think of things, you know, in the last week, but yeah. So I know there were some other things suggested. I don't,

they're bound to publish it immediately they must publish the agenda within 48 hours yeah it's a hard stop yeah yeah okay and the last thing is as far as our objectives of reaching revenue neutral operations of the airport and what have you was also softly mandated by our liaison, Anil, in his first couple meetings here. So that justifies why we are trying to achieve that.

Okay.

That's all.

All right.

Thank you.

Committee reports, airport fund report.

I don't have anything on the airport fund, but I do have a few things for you, if you don't mind me interjecting now. First, Julian told me to tell you all, I believe you have a presentation to council coming up relatively soon. Speaking of the clerk's office, apparently that presentation is due to them tomorrow.

Yes.

So please get the presentation to them tomorrow. Two other things. This was provided to, this information was provided to council last Friday. So, and it's related to the airport. So I'll provide it to you now. The first was an update on the airport fees and particularly the schedule for implementation. Staff have kind of refined the timeline based on this process we've been going through, the feedback we've been getting. So the current plan from staff is that we will try to bring the commercial fee updates. And when I say the commercial fee updates, I mean the commercial through the fence fees, the fuel flowage fees, the tie downs, both monthly and nightly, the port to port rents and the ground lease rates. That's kind of, it's not all commercial, but that's kind of the bucket I'm looking at in that we're hoping to bring, um, in December, 2026 this year, um, with a, uh, A staff report to council at a study session in November, followed by potentially implementation in December if they elect council directs us to proceed with that. And then the residential through defense fee side of the equation, which is residential through through defense fees and the aircraft base fee that was discussed as part of the proposal. that we're not planning to bring in 2026. We're planning to bring that in 2027 to give us additional time to complete our legal analysis into do title research, look into the easement agreements, and do a full-fledged engagement process with Erie Air Park residents who will be affected by the residential through defense fee. And so the earliest that would be, the changes would be coming would be in late 2027 to be implemented in 2028?

All at once? Or are they going to do it?

Just the residential? It depends on the record.

For the commercial, those will be implemented before the residential.

Yes, commercial through-the-fence fees we're planning to bring in this year, December 2026. Residential through-the-fence fees not being brought until end of 2027.

And will the fees in general have an automatic step up as time goes on to keep up with inflation or something like that?

Yeah, that would depend on the specifics of the proposal. This is just an update on the timeline. I think we had discussed that in our proposal, and it's certainly something we could suggest council implements, assuming we review that with legal and they're okay with that.

So that we don't get ourselves into another 20-year hole. Yeah. Why are they breaking it up?

Because basically our assessment is that the residential through defense fees and the base fees are where, one, we have the most legal work that we need to do looking into the easement agreements surrounding things historically, and it's the one where we're getting the most money. You know, pushback, public comments, engagement, the one where we think we need to spend the most time really looking at our proposal and also giving people an opportunity to be heard and share their thoughts on the fees, on any fee updates, and how it might affect them.

Including commercial?

No, just residential.

Why would you not allow public comment for commercial?

Well, we're still going to do a public engagement process for commercial through defense fees. It's just going to be less in-depth than the one for residential. And I don't even necessarily want to say that. It will still offer plenty of opportunities for the commercial users to provide public comment. But also on the legal side, it's much more straightforward. There's less need to do research there.

Does the council or the... town staff, or is the staff making any rights to the council considering changing the ordinance that establishes the 25 cents per square foot? Because I think before you do anything, that needs to be addressed.

Yes, that's what the fee change, the actual implementation of the fee changes will be will change of the 25 cents to something higher. Yes. Yeah. No. So it's actually, there's a resolution that the ordinance refers to a resolution. I'm pretty sure we do the fee updates now by resolution, not by ordinance. But yes, the 25 cents per square foot is the current commercial through the fence fee rate and the ground lease rate.

Which establishes everything from moving forward.

Yes, and now under the current proposal for ground lease rates and commercial through defense fee rates, they're tied together, that would be increasing to $0.32 per square foot.

But that needs to happen before any of this other stuff happens. Right.

I don't understand what you're asking.

The $0.25 fee is established by ordinance. Yeah, that is an ordinance that was passed by the town.

Yes.

That needs to be revised or amended to a new fee structure of the square footage rate. Correct. To 32 cents. Yes. That needs to happen before you implement the new fees, because if you implement the new fees, whether commercial or otherwise... have to be established based on a 25 cents. You can't do 32 on the new fees without having the ordinance changed. Don't put the cart before the horse. Get the ordinance changed before you go down the road of changing the fees.

And we can't enter into negotiations for...

new hangers or whatever until that all of our fans were based on the premise that 25 cent ordinance yeah would be changed okay that must happen first in my mind

Clarification.

I would support the town and the council when it comes to the point of the residential fees. I would highly encourage that you do something along the lines of a town hall type scenario, not a public comment. It needs to be a fairly. open, robust discussion of all the stakeholders. Frankly, I would recommend doing, but since you're going to do it at two different times, my recommendation would be doing it as a town hall of all the stakeholders, residential and commercial, all together, so everyone can be participating in the discussion about the airport.

Julian had said the last time he was here that we're on track to start negotiating the development of those hangers and the finances that follow it. We can't have that discussion of what those financial terms will be without changing the base rate prior. So he implied those negotiations were going to start along with December.

Yes, negotiations with the hangar developer are going to start, commence here very shortly, right?

Yes. Part of that negotiation will be what is the developer going to pay for the ground lease?

Yes, what is the ground lease rate going to be?

Now, too long.

Yes. Yes, everything will get changed at the same time, so it all works and makes sense. So that was the first update. I don't know if that was a good or bad update, but it was an update. Second update is Council received a memorandum from yours truly. in the packet as well related to the general fund requesting repayment of the transfers from the general fund to the airport fund in 2024 and 2025. So the FAA's guidelines state that airport revenue may be used to repay the airport owner or sponsor for funds contributed by such airport owner or sponsor for capital and operating costs of the airport that have not already been reimbursed. Their guidelines also state that the airport owner or sponsor must make such requests for repayment within six years of the date of the contribution. For the 2024 fiscal year, the general fund transferred $240,000 to the airport fund. For the 2025 fiscal year, it was two separate transfers, but they totaled to $212,989. Okay. And so the general fund is requesting repayment of those transfers within the next six years. for each transfer, which is 2031 and 2032, respectively. I will just say this is mostly in an accounting step so that this is recorded and is transparent for everyone involved that the general fund does want to eventually be repaid by the airport fund for those transfers. As the airport funds code language states, will be independent and any assistance to other funds will be repaid. We do not have the expectation. I certainly don't. I don't think anyone else in staff does that the airport fund is in any position immediately to repay those transfers. But we did want to meet the statutory deadline for the FAA to request it so that at a future date when the airport fund is hopefully making money hand over fist, it can repay the poor old general fund for the transfers it made.

Okay, so to be clear, you just stated that the airport fund is a half a million dollars in the whole? $452,000, yes.

Okay, another question. Yes.

On the crosswind runway was closed, removal of those line of sight restrictions allowed the land at the corner of those intersections to be sold and developed, which they were. It is my understanding that they were sold for approximately $300,000 per and one of the $300,000 was applied to pay off the $300,000 note that the town had on the purchase of the property. Yeah, $4 million and the FAA coughed up $700,000. But my question as part of the town staff's due diligence, where's the other $300,000?

Should it not be applied to that? $450,000 debt.

And I believe the question has been asked over a period of years by our former vice chair of the board as to where is that money, and we'd like it back. If it's not to the fund, we'd like to see it applied to that deficit.

That's the first I'm hearing of this, but I will look into it. Thank you. Makes sense.

Emma, I'm a little confused at the beginning. You were talking about how the general fund is an investment. This money is an investment into the airport. And now I'm hearing that actually this is a loan that needs paid back.

So now for the ordinance.

Okay.

they, every general fund transfer is recorded and that is a loan to be paid back essentially. And so a while back we tried to suggest that that not be the case. And still I think it is the consensus of this board that that not be the case. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough interest at a town council level for that to happen. So, yes, each one of these transfers I view as an investment in the airport. That's just my view. There is a big return on investment. And there are, you know, I'll just pick up the favorite one we like to talk about. The rec center. The rec center operates deep in the red, but provides a great service for the community. And so the airport, while not everybody flies and enjoys the airport, provides a lot of jobs, a lot of business payroll. At my estimate, there was 15 to 20 businesses that have access to the airport. And in a town that doesn't have a lot, a huge employment base, I think that's a very important part of that. And that's only going to grow as stuff gets developed near the airport. You know, with future phases of the business park and more stuff to go out near there, all that benefits the town.

I think some would argue, too, that the $700,000 that the FAA gave the town for purchase of the airport should be included in that as well.

I agree. It's my, if you're looking at it from.

You got to buy an asset.

Yeah. I mean, again, I'm not an accountant, but I know how you guys look at it, that it's, you know, accounts receivable, accounts payable, it's money coming in. So it's got to be somewhere.

On the study sessions, I've been pretty harsh to the council and to the town about, look, you paid nothing for the airport. They use being the town. We got the airport for free. Yeah. Well, it's virtue of the thought $700,000 against the price tag of a million. When the FAA coughed up $700,000 at their suggestion, as I understand the history of it. Okay. Then the town takes out a loan of $300,000. Then they sell these two parcels when the FAA forced the runway closure.

Yeah.

Okay, now line of sight for intersecting runways. Those restrictions go away. Okay, now we develop them. The price of the land then was $300,000 per. They took the money and they paid off the loan. They being the town. Nobody here had anything to do with it. But the bottom line is the town paid zip for it. Yeah. And I asked at the same meeting, how much has the town invested in the airport since that time? General fund aside, on the FBO or anything else.

Yeah, the general fund is – this is the irony of the whole thing. It's a transfer to get the matching grants so that we can get the FAA fund. So it's an investment, I guess, that we're making sure we get the FAA fund. So it's a little kludgy the way it's been done, and I agree. I mean, I'm – I've been a supporter in getting the ordinance changed. Unfortunately, it was pulling teeth to get enough support to get that through.

You remember early on the confusion that we all had. You've been around since then. You were around since then. The confusion of everybody's referring to it, the town staff. We were in the airport enterprise fund. With his due diligence and his help, It's not. It's not. Nor should it be based on the requirements of having an enterprise fund. It's basically fund accounting. You know what I'm talking about. It's basically fund accounting, right?

Yeah, except there's this ordinance that says any assistance by other funds to the airport fund will be repaid to the other funds.

So the $700,000, who got that money? Or the fund?

and there's another potential problem if that is a debt that the airport has and you're saying that airports future revenues can pay down that debt isn't the current ordinance that's in place that we tried to get changed state that the airport can't make any money it's all the town's money unless we get the ordinance changed the way we wanted, we can't generate any other money.

No, I don't think it says that.

I mean, that's why we wanted the ordinance changed.

State law requires that the fund at the end of the year Yes. Zero-sum game.

Yes, and also general law around fees and charges will dictate that the fees and charges have to go towards, the revenue has to go towards expenses.

That is correct. Yeah. That's how I understood it.

So there's not, no, there's no shell game that's going to go on where we use the airport as a cash cow to fund the general fund.

Right. But it's also my understanding that should the goal ever be reached, that the airport fund has positive revenue at the end of the year assuming there isn't any loan to be paid back that that fund money could stay as part of the internal that is the airport's budget and could be used for improvements, not siphoned off and used to buy more bike paths.

No, yeah, any money. A surplus, if you will. A surplus that is generated by the airport fund will stay in the airport fund.

But state law requires that the town make up the difference of that fund, and the ordinance states it, that if there's a negative at the end of the budgetary year, the town's general fund must get it to zero in terms of losses.

Yeah, it's a little more complicated than that, right? There's a minimum unrestricted fund balance that the airport fund is required to maintain based on the value of its capital assets and the amount of expenditures it has on a year. And that's basically to maintain liquidity in the fund. And so the general fund, if the airport fund is below that number, has been stepping in and transferring money to the airport. Reserves. Yeah, basically you have to maintain a certain amount of reserves.

I'm a little confused. There's a running balance of these transfers that has to be made up at some point in time.

Based on the current ordinance, yes. The policy is that this incurs, in essence, a debt. And so the point of this memo is to memorialize these and make sure everybody's on the same page about the situation as the current ordinance dictates. If the council elects to, in the future, make a change and say, we don't agree that this is the way to manage the airport moving forward, they could elect to do so and they could even elect to remove the obligation.

This is a question from a new guy here. How often does the airport receive funding in a general plan?

It has been every year since the 2023 transition to the new management system where Previously, we kind of had this black box of finances where Jason, as Vector Air, was both the FBO and the airport manager. And while he still is both the FBO and the airport manager, they're now clearly separated. And Jason is paid $240,000 every year as the contract for him to provide airport manager services. Um, and so, um, since then, because that expense is, has been occurred, um, the airport fund has been an operationally losing money. Um, and so it may seem like, why the heck did you guys change the system and start paying Jason so much money? Well, the answer Jason would tell you is that he was kind of losing money hand over fist on the deal, um, with all the expenses he was incurring to, to manage the airport. It wasn't being made up for, um, uh, by the revenues that he was receiving through defense fees and through land leases. And so now, instead of, you know, as no business owner would be willing to just eat that loss charitably for forever, the airport fund is now seeing the transparency of the financial situation at the airport. And that is an operational loss on an annual basis.

240, then that contract, that's a debt owed back to the city at some point.

Uh, so it's, yeah, it's kind of got the $240,000 is the annual cost of the airport manager contract adjacent in 2024. Um, we just did the transfer for the, from the general fund to the airport fund as the same number, just to be really clean in 2025, we actually did the math of what's the minimum transfer to keep that reserve balance that we need in the airport fund. And that was the $212,000. Um,

makes sense okay thanks for the clarity but it's basically here's the airport budget there's the number it's about a half a million dollars roughly right yep all the money for the through defense fees tie down fees fuel flow fees all of that gets put into the fund that fund balance or whatever's in it gets paid to the airports made to the town. And on the balance sheet or income statement, there's this, there's that half a million dollars. How many in fees came in during the year? Take that against it. What's the difference? Along with the reserve, that's the shortfall. Town's got to put it in there to get it to that point. Not really zero, based on what he's saying, but it's a positive amount in the fund at the beginning of the fiscal year.

On the reverse, with the current ordinance that is in place, If the airport fund is positive, we have no way of keeping that in the airport, and it goes back to the general fund.

Not my understanding.

Because we were saying we need the ordinance change in order to be able to raise revenue in the airport to pay for future improvements. You said that that was imperative. If the ordinance doesn't change, we are unable

I don't believe that's the case, is it? That's not my understanding of the ordinance. At the end of the year, we have the reserve in there and we still have $300,000 extra. It stays in the fund. Yeah. Okay. It's not going to be sent to the rec center. No, it's not going to be sent to public works.

I think we would be, I think we would likely get into a lot of trouble legally if we were trying to pull money out of the air. Cause it's not an enterprise. Well, yes, but maybe why they tried to call it an enterprise. It's not an enterprise fund, but it's, it's kind of as close as you can get without technically being one. Okay. That's kind of the way we treat it right now.

It's like if they tried to do that with the water fund, they would get in a lot of trouble for that.

If I remember correctly, and help me out here, the distinction between what we have and what an enterprise fund would be, the biggest distinction, as I understood it, is this transfer of money from the town to the enterprise fund cannot happen.

It's very limited. There's a percentage of revenue that can come from state or local sources. The majority of it has to be self-sustaining. It's a self-sustaining public business.

I took from what Lockie was talking about. It's kind of like there are instances where they can use the water fund to... the general fund can essentially take a loan from the water fund for certain instances. It has to be repaid back to the water fund, obviously, but there's stipulations around it. It has to be something water-related. I think maybe that's why they were referring to it as an enterprise fund so that if there were It's just where they're not borrowing it back or they're not taking money out of there that would be generated through there. Because, yeah, like I said, in normal circumstances, in a true enterprise fund, that violates TABOR.

The bottom line is we're a long ways from that.

We are a long ways away from that, although we're creeping forward.

So, Loki, you mentioned 2024-25 as general fund loans. Yes. Nothing prior to that. There's no loans on the book that the airport's liable for.

These are the two that I'm aware of.

Right. And you have made your statutory requirement demand for repayment of those 2024-25 fund transfers. Yep. But the city has made no demand for payment. No, yeah, no. There's no timeline on when that loan must be repaid. So that your statutory requirement of making the demand.

He said six years.

Yeah. So the six years to make the request for repayment. Yes. So I did in the memo ask for repayment within six years of the date of transfer, which is 2031 and 2032. But if the airport fund is not able to make the repayment by then, I would suspect expect us to extend that deadline for repayment.

All right. Thank you. Should we raise any revenue by allowing development of the crosswind runway? Where does that money go and what guarantees do we have that stays at the airport?

First of all, I would say, I think the consensus among the council was a severe lack of interest in developing the Crossman runway in any capacity. The last time the issue was brought up. Um, but I would presume, and I can't, I don't want to state officially for the record that that land is owned by the airport and is therefore, um, a capital resource, um, a capitalized resource in the airport fund and therefore any, um, any development of that land, the proceeds would go to the airport fund as the owner of the land.

That begs the question, and I think we got some decisions to make, we as a town, going back to the transfer, supposed transfer of a 30-acre parcel of land adjacent to the airport, a appraised value of roughly $2.8 million. If a portion of that gets transferred to become part of the airport, does that mean the airport fund now owns the town $2 million? No.

It would be up to them.

That's still a long, you know, as you said, class half full. And I think there's a lot of hurdles to overcome.

Let's get the length first.

I think that's a long-term thing that may or may not come to fruition.

I'll also say that there's probably say this part, but talk with Julia a little bit that the way the town charter is currently written is only allows for like a 20 year ground lease. And so probably at some point, we may need to look at a charter amendment or several. It's just for an individual investing in something like that, they're going to look for a 40-year lease because you're going to dump several million dollars in that to get your investment back. It doesn't make sense. And also there's the worry that after somebody's built something something like that. And then, and then the, the town reclaims it after, you know, the end of the lease and somebody's dumped money into it. So that there's, I could probably list 10 things like I, so like I said, the first thing let's, let's get the property and then, and then, yeah, these, these other issues we're going to have to resolve. But I mean, that's why this board is so important because I will tell you that There's a lot of unexpected things that happen in council and a lot of priorities that pop up. So it's good having this board because like, you know, the squeaky wheel gets greased and it's good to have momentum here to say, hey, you guys still need to be looking at this because invariably it'll get lost in the shuffle. And it is important because we had a vision for that property that goes back to 2020 when we started this whole thing. So yeah, so we want to keep that going and keep momentum going.

But if the acquisition of the land based on rights in the stone that we now have a $2.8 million debt For the airport funding.

How are we ever going to get out of that? This is why I present the question because a lot of it needs to be flushed out.

I think there's a lot, you know, if it gets to that point, there's more than one vision for where that goes. Yeah. And so let's see what happens and then we can go from there. Anything else? That was all. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Right. Hangar committee. Nothing. Okay. Community engagement.

Nothing for this. Okay.

The airport manager is not here. Item D, residential through the fence fee discussion. I ask that this be put on there. There's been a lot of comment. a lot of discussion about this. And so, Jennifer, I know at the last meeting you were trying to get something done about that. So now that things have kind of settled, here's the opportunity. So I'd just like to go around first and hear any thoughts about residential fronts through the fee. And I didn't know this initially, but the aircraft fee aircraft base fee would also be is going to be kind of part of this too. Since that's going to be tied to that. So while do you want to start off?

Sure. So I actually approached Emmett because I've been talking to several of the neighbors in the air park and have got a lot of constructive input. And I just want to start by thanking a couple people. Bron Mincher. I know you all see Bron's emails. He's done a tremendous amount of work in a constructive fashion to try to assist what we're doing here. So I want the record to show that Bron Mincher is providing us constructive input to act on. There's another person. It's called the Erie Airpark Anonymous. And I don't know who this person is, but they have done some fine work. So whoever you are, thank you. And then, of course, the other residents, my neighbors and others that have provided individual feedback. I would encourage the air park residents to continue interaction with this board. I did see some emails where they felt they should dismiss this board as not being effective. And I'd argue with them that this board probably provides the best avenue for the residents of the air park. I know there will be town meetings and that sort of things we go forward, but I just like to encourage them to keep communicating with us. The last thing I heard, and this was a little bit interesting, I guess the word I'd use, we somewhat scared people with what we put out in February. And that's unfortunate. And I think the only thing we can do at this point is communicate our goals and our actions better. And how we do that, we kind of started this meeting with what are the ways are there to get the information out there. I do think the airport manager meeting that's going to be on August 1st is a very good start to communicating what's going on. And I don't know if you haven't heard about that, but Jason has agreed to meet with the airport residents on August 1st, I think it is. to talk about what's happening at the airport.

Where is that happening?

I'm assuming we're a vector. I don't know for sure. Okay, so with those things out of the way, I do have a list of items. Some of these we've kind of hit on, and you started off with the property tax thing. And I would have to say this is the biggest issue I get hit with. It's like, okay, you guys have a target that we're supposed to meet. It's this $450,000 number, which we're only making a portion of that. So we got this $250,000 deficit here. I've had people come to me and say that they reject the premise that the airport's not revenue neutral now when you take into account property tax input, economic generation that Emmett referred to. I don't know if there is a way for the town to come up with a number that they could apply to our target and say, okay, out of the property tax that we receive from the airport, we can apply this amount to the airport fund so that instead of us needing to raise another $250,000, maybe we only need to raise $150,000. I don't know what the numbers are. But I think until we make some sort of commitment on what the property tax component is providing to the airport, we are going to struggle. That's the input I'm getting from my neighbors.

So that, and I probably prefer to you on this, and maybe it might be good at a future meeting to get uh sarah hancock here because she can kind of go through the um the overall budget perspective on this but the um i i did hear that by the way i sorry i couldn't add a work commitment i had to be out but i did watch the whole meeting um And I agree with your assessment. I think that there was a miscommunication for whatever happened. And we've had that happen before on council. And we can work through that. The good thing is it's now in the open. We can start talking about it. The property tax thing is very difficult because if you look at the breakdown of what, you know, the, the town of Erie collects versus Weld County versus, um, you know, all the other taxing districts. Um, it's not, and do you, I don't know what the breakdown would be for the airport, but it's, I believe that. So for instance, like there's, uh, four mills that we have for for the trails fund right and that that is an enterprise fund that cannot be used for anything else but trails and open space so that's a dedicated source so then um there's uh uh tax that we have for uh for bonds for the rec center and the uh the police station um the rec center portion of that will end uh at the end of this year that's paid off and then um And then we have the police station. And that was the original debt that was taken out in 20, I think it was 2014 or 2016 when they first expanded the police station.

They're renovating...

So that's, yeah. So the renovation that's done through COPs, so that's not a property tax. But it is a general fund expense.

And the new police station is not paid off, right?

Yeah. So what happened, and from when the rec center was, the bonds were originally taken out of the rec center, I think it was a 30-year term. And when they started the police station, the first expansion and whatever that was, 2014, 2016, they extended the term, they renewed the bonds and they extended the term and they went to paying uh interest only on the police station portion and they uh and then they were pulling paying the full amount on on the rec center so the rec center is paid off uh and then after that ends and we'll be paying making full payments on on the police station to pay that portion off so the cop's for the expansion now that's a different funding mechanism that would be through property tax uh so then i think there's another I thought it's somewhere around 1.3 or 1.4 mils. Um, but it's not a lot. And that is to do all the other functions that, that, um, you know, that, that we have to, we have to do now. So some of the other, um, you know, some of the other funding mechanisms we have, like roads and things like that, we don't necessarily charge to residents, we charge to developers. So there's impact fees, there's tap fees that we have, you know, to, you know, if we need to buy more water, those types of things. So I heard that comment, but I think when people really realize why you break it down, There's not actually a lot to slice up the pie to where you're going to make up the kind of deficits that we're seeing here. And I understand there's a lot that we need to go through as far as, I guess, the more I don't know if I want to call them controversial, but, but the, the, the ones that I think I understand people's concerns, you know, if we are going to extend this to, um, properties that, that don't have a hanger or don't have a plane. And we, we discuss that a lot. If we talk about people who have a hanger, but don't have a plane in it and, and those types of things. And then, and then getting to the portion that the, you know you know, what's in the deeded access that that's a legal question that we're only going to get answered by our legal team. But there's the, the, To Paul's point at the beginning here, the town didn't pay anything for the airport. And I thought when Jason listed the history of, you know, when he took over the airport and how all that happened, the unfortunate part I'm sure people at the airport were saying, hey, this has been running fine. This has been running great. And then we talk about it was in 23 when we made the change to separate those funds, the FBO from the airport manager. So that's when all of... the things that I don't think were transparent to the public on how the finances actually work that got out. And then now we are actually seeing what the gaps are. So to the general was presenting, I, I, you know, I understand the, the air park residents concern, but I, I, I think he, you know, he didn't see the problem that, that, that we were trying to deal with and that when this got exposed, it was like, okay, this, this is now what we have to, the Delta that we have to fill. And, um, so, and again, I'm not saying or advocating for, but I'm just one of seven people. So when this eventually gets back to us, there's going to be other discussions on this, but, um, I don't even know if, if we live, were to dedicate a portion of property tax to the airport, like, I mean, that seems like it would be more of an enterprise fund Tabor type thing. And I don't even know if we could do that without, if that would require an election or not, I'm not sure, but.

Vote for that. I understand the challenge. The ordinance is pretty clear that airports should be revenue neutral. Right now, we're just taking direct revenue in that equation. And we're obviously half a million dollars short. And I think the challenge going forward is if we can't convince people that there is some number that's being applied to this deficit that's coming out of their property taxes. yeah we're gonna we're gonna be fighting that battle so i guess you know the what's in front of you is what can we do there to address that yeah so you know if our target is i'm going to make up number of our targets 250 000 we got to make up how much of that can be offset by what the property tax is and i don't know how you get that number no clue i just know that we need it yeah i i think in the

we just did a survey that we sent out. And if you get a chance to watch the meeting Tuesday night, and by the way, for everyone here and the people in public, um, you go on YouTube now to watch the meetings. Like since, uh, Tuesday night there, you don't want to go to the, the, if you try to look where he used to view the meetings there, they look like, Oh, stop recording meetings, but it's all being put on YouTube now. Um, But we talked about a survey that went out because we're looking at the rec center expansion. And so we're proposing a half percent sales tax increase to be able to bond against that for rec center expansion. And like you were talking earlier, it's like... That's an investment. People use it and the airport is also a resource. People invest in it. The struggle that we have is on a town-wide level that if we say that we're going to increase property taxes or have a dedicated sales tax for the airport, it's going to be hard to get full support of the whole town behind that. And I, I think, you know, again, I, I think, um, we want, we, we talked about parody, right. It was where we, so, um, we, we want to ensure that, that, we're treating everyone fairly, but, um, with the understanding that we may have some limitations because of the legal things surrounding the airport that, um, you know, the one tool that we do have is fees, but at the same time, judging by what happened in Centennial and, um, you know, you get these things where we're increasing the fees by a hundred percent. Well, that could be a problem for the FAA. So that's another roadblock. Um, I don't think any of us as much as this body, you know, worked on the answers to this. Um, it, it, I'm not sure that any of us have a full picture of, of what this is going to look like. I mean, we're, we're hoping that even just with the commercial side of this, because there were some of those fee increases that I think were in the a hundred percent increase. And if we're going to get pushed back on that side. Um, so, um, It's certainly, we need to look at what tools are available. So to that perspective, we can talk about it, but I'll just say that property tax is a thing that's going to be applied. It's going to be applied to the whole town. And if we can, I mean, I'm all for, I, well, I'd be for some sort of revenue source that we could get that multiple people pay into. That's why I like the sales tax idea for the rec center as opposed to property tax because of two things. One, in our survey, we showed that... People feel that they are being overtaxed on their property, and so they're highly against it. Most residents in Erie now, the way it's built out, live in a metro district. So there's an additional metro district tax on top of all the other taxing districts that you pay with. So my... I'm in Erie Highlands, and I think it's 75 or 77 mils that we pay just to the Metro District. And that's one of the highest ticket items on my tax bill. You're in Vista Ridge. It's the same thing. So... I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's a hard sell and we've got to get the community behind that. But I would say to the existing property taxes that we have now that we could... you know, earmark something now towards that. I'm not sure that that's, that's feasible at this point because this year, and we've already been kind of warned of this, this, this is, this is going to be a rough budget cycle just because a lot of other things that are happening. So that's kind of where it is. So.

I think I'd just maybe close that one with, you know, if we can somehow define the actual airport funding target, taking into account the property tax, economic impact, future hangar development into this fee structure debate would really help us as we go forward. So I'll leave it there. There is this thing out there called the 1987 easement policy. that is still being brought up, even though the town bought the airport in 93, and there's been legal assessment made on that. But I don't believe the town has ever officially made a legal determination on whether the 1987 Eastman Agreement is still a viable document for us.

We haven't, and that's still... Being reviewed, as Lockie said, it looks like it's going to be 27, but we're not getting an easy answering that. And when you're going back, you know, what, almost 40 years, that's, yeah.

Yeah, the problem is we have, you know, folks that are still hanging on to that. And it just needs to be a decision one way or the other.

Yeah. Well, it's, I agree, but like, and I would love to just have a vote on that, but there's, because there's legal worry about that. That's why we hired an airport attorney to do this because when our attorney was Kendra Carberry, it was outside of her expertise on that. I think Marina, it's the same thing. So.

So do you think that's something that could be done in by 2027? Yeah.

We're making progress in the legal review of the easement agreement. That's part of that.

There will be a firm determination made on that 1987 easement viability.

Yeah, I mean, it could end up getting litigated, but I think part of the 2027 implementation of the fees will have to be the town taking a position on the enforceability or not of that easement agreement.

or there will forever be conflict and argument over it.

Well, I assume that kind of sitting back, taking back the pro and con version of, you know, the, I know there's a lot of people hanging on to it, but I think, The other side of the argument is a lot of those people haven't been paying those fees in 40 years. And so my question is, just like you have statute of limitations on things, if there hasn't been an enforcement mechanism, if it hasn't been collected, you know, that's the question before a judge, they would... say is and i don't know the answer to that i just yes i don't either and i'm not arguing oh yeah i agree with what you're saying i'm just saying we need to put it to bed agree agreed yeah and be done with it yeah

One of the items that keeps coming up is consider a graduated access fee structure for active users versus deeded but dormant non-users, such as our guest here is a dormant non-user is what we call, even though she has deeded access. I think this board at some point should make a recommendation on our initial proposal where we basically said $800 for every person that has deeded access. So those people that have deeded access but are dormant or non-users, I think we need to reconsider our proposal. And whether we want to lower that or look at an alternate type of approach where we say, you're a dormant access non-user. And I'm just going to kind of make up something here that if we have a, it's called a reestablishment commit process, where if if you haven't paid through the fence fees for 10 years, but all of a sudden you get your pilot's license and you want to reengage, that there is a permit fee that maybe takes into account the fact that you haven't paid for 10 years to get you back to current status. And for the most part, that would only apply when somebody sells their house. And the next people that come in and say, gee, we have deeded access, we'd like to use that. The town could go, that's fine. You need to pay this amount of money. Let's call it a permit access fee. And then going forward, they would have the access. So that kind of addresses some of the issues we're having with our deeded but dormant non-users. So I'm not saying we need to tackle that tonight, but I think we need to have discussions about that over the next few months on what our proposals should look like. Emmett brought this up at the beginning. We can't solve this problem at once. It's going to be over several years. We probably at some point need to commit to what that time frame looks like. Do we implement this fee structure over three years, five years, seven years on whatever it is that we ultimately end up doing?

Sure. I know when we had the study session with council, that was, I think a couple of people had brought that up is, you know, do you, do you have a ramp up schedule? I think that would, if there is an issue with the, the FAA, maybe the scaling up would, would help towards that.

So, yeah, we were silent in that, in our proposal in February. But I think we probably need to go on record with something.

I think I might have said something at that point in time when we proposed that.

At the town meeting? Okay. Yeah, I think that's pretty much it for right now.

Thank you. I only have one thing. A lot of people are commenting about a potential 100% increase in a fee, but that fee has remained fixed for 20 years. Should it not be treated as an annual growth rate of 3.5% over those 20 years and not be referenced as a 100% increase? Now it's a catch-up, and if we re-label it then it does not violate the faa constraints what have you and it is not an issue it's not a 100 increase of an annual fee from one year to the next it's a three and a half percent increase over 20 years that was never collected i yeah i think that again that's kind of a

Illegal question. So, I mean, I would tend to agree with your assessment that, yeah, this exact same thing happened in our water fee schedule. We used to have a practice where we did it every five years until in this last five years we found out five years is way too late. So now we're doing it every year. Um, because the, uh, with everything going on in Colorado with the Colorado river and everything, uh, yeah, just, uh, access to water and buying water rights has just gone through the roof. So, um, we don't want to be going out to residents saying, Oh yeah, we got to double your water fees. So, um, and, uh, When we had this last fee increase, it was really just to the development community, you know, for tap fees. But, yeah, we're going to be looking at other fees or the usage fees coming up. And I know that's going to be another, you know, hot topic. So, yeah, totally get where you're coming from. But, yeah, I think.

I think there is precedence for. Yep. describing it as a catch-up increase, what have you, that negates the fact that it is a one-time 100% increase, and then we don't have that problem in that discussion. So we should look into that.

I guess the question is, would the FAA view it that way if you renamed it? I don't know.

Well, it's not a renaming. It's a restatement of what it is. People are calling it a 100% increase, but it's not.

Yeah, totally.

It's an annual thing.

Yeah, yeah.

It has gone on with no increase for 20 years. Yeah.

That's all I have.

I don't have a lot to add at this point. Admittedly, I'm still trying to take it all in. I understand some of the nuances here. I'm stuck with that, but I'll pass it on just because I don't think there's much that I know at all that I can contribute at this time.

We accept your new guy pass.

I don't know how long that's going to last, but I need it for another few more sessions, please.

Jennifer.

Emma, thank you for putting it on the agenda, and I appreciate your common empathy to any providing context so everyone understands What was the board task? How it was framed, John? I'd also like to thank you. I appreciate you listening to the community and really taking it in on their viewpoint. So I appreciate that.

Well, sometimes I'm walking the dog. I don't have a choice. But thank you. Appreciate it.

I think it's really, really important for us to listen to our communities, how it's affecting them. Actively listen. We developed something. We need to hear from them how it's affecting them to truly understand it.

on everything the town does.

Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, exactly. Just on that, I wrote, like, the true validity of any municipal policy or fee structure change is often reflected in the community's response. And in this case, the reaction to these new proposed fees was one of, I would call it, profound outrage. Profound. I've never seen anything like this. Fear. It was hurtful. It was awful. And I think we need to listen to that. Really listen to that. Anyways. So this outrage is highlighting that we have a severe disconnect between the modeling and the realities of what is really affecting these property owners. Implementing any changes to this residential through the fence agreements for air park residents is highly complex process. It honors like this historic, it's a huge history. It has this incredible history, its journey. And it's complicated. Like I think the lawyers are seeing now how complicated it is. They brought up the 1987 agreement. And this is going to sound weird for a way to describe a document, but it's a beautiful document the way it's written. I've read it way too many times trying to understand it, but I think it is. And I am not real estate in any way, a professional in real estate. But when I'm doing research, I see there's like, I'm thinking about 25 residents who have this agreement. I think it's an incredible agreement. And then also I know I've asked you to include the white paper. That's a really well-written document that gives validity to the 1987 agreement. It gives that validity to it. Also a really well-written document. I would just ask that when we're looking at this document, not just legally, but let's look at the spirit of why it was created. just any legal loopholes. Let's look at the spirit. Why was it created, our air park? Why is it here? What is the spirit of this easement agreement? Well, we have vested historical property rights. We also have federal FAA grant assurances. This makes everything extremely complicated. As I already stated before, you're probably tired of hearing it from me. We don't have the resources necessarily to independently evaluate the complexities here. We didn't have all the information we needed at a level required to support a fully informed and defensible recommendation. We didn't have legal review, which I brought up before. We have unresolved property rights, which Lyle, you just talked about. They're unresolved. They've been unresolved for quite some time. And they mean a lot to our age. We have a rate setting methodology. So currently, if we look at the ordinance, we use a rate setting methodology that benchmarks residential through the fence on airport tie down rates. And this new one, it What is it bound to, the $800? If we look at what is it tied to? Is it tied to tie-downs? What is it bound to is what I'm asking. Also, we have a little bit of blending of user classes where we have residential zoning, which establishes a distinct class of aeronautical user, which can justify applying a different fee structure than a commercial user. So applying a $0.32 fee square foot to a private resident is... inappropriate in my opinion we're a different user we have we're zone different so we shouldn't have that same structure but then you don't get parity if you say they're different but the fa the fa permits um how is this user doing the airport what how are you using it um you are given a allowance that says we're very different. A residential user versus a commercial user are very different users. And the FAA grants that ability to charge different fees.

So you do want to be able to pay less than somebody else. You don't want to be charged more than somebody else, but you don't want to pay more than somebody else. Where is the definition of parity if you're going to enforce that things are different?

I don't think you should interpret what she's saying. I would flip it on you, quite frankly.

No, I mean, we had the discussion about fairness and parity, so what are we comparing? If they're different, you can't compare.

What she's saying shouldn't be misinterpreted. What I agree or support is The residential fee, whatever it is, whatever it ends up being, is one thing. A commercial fee should be evaluated differently because a true commercial fee, it's a business making money on access to the airport. They're not making any money. They are enjoying, by right, the airport. So, I see it as flipped the other way. It's not you're paying less. It's the business should pay more.

I want to make sure that that's... Then where was our argument that they should be the same?

Well, parity in terms of how you evaluate it. But she's right. The FAA allows you to have a fee structure that is different for commercial by the use that they get of the airport.

Right.

Okay. I just want to make sure that we're not saying the residents should pay less because that's not what anybody suggests. I don't want them to be targeted for... As having getting special treatment and, oh, you guys, really, you should pay less. No, everybody should pay a fee that is established reasonably. But it may mean that the commercial entity should pay more.

Right now, the residential fee is tied to the tie down rate.

Is it or is it? I always understood it was the other way around.

No, the residential fee through the fence is based on what the tie-down rate is. $50 a month, $12 a month. Right. And maybe to simplify things, we go back to that and just say that through the fence residential.

You shouldn't explain it to me. It was the other way around. It's the $600 gets you to the $50 for the tie-downs.

I heard it the other way.

You should probably get clarification from him as to what the.

But, you know, that would do away with the 32 cents a square foot on residential side. It would keep, you know, similarity with what we have now as far as fee structure goes. The thing that we didn't – we'd still have to address is the dormant non-users.

For clarity and just for – because the – So what was the origin of the 32 cents or going to the 32 cents per square foot for everything? Because I thought we were with the other fees, whether it's the per plane or the plane fee. There were other things that we did where we were trying to make a difference between commercial and residential.

Well, if I recall... we used as a baseline the 25 cents because that is an ordinance that's 25 cents. We all know that it's too low by virtue of the fact that it's been around since 19, I think, 92, 94, in terms of that fee being established or that rate being established. And it has never been revised. It needs to be revised to a updated amount. All costs have gone up. But if I remember correctly, we stored it kind of based our starting point with the spreadsheet and our recommendations on What if it was 32 cents instead of, I think we used 36 as well, but instead of 25, how does that translate through the entire process to a square footage price for say a 55 by 50 box hanger? We also came to the conclusion that even at 32 cents economically based on the market, The ground leases for a 50 by 50 box hanger was way too low. So we established the minimum amount. I think it was 150 bucks per month for a ground lease for any sized hanger. But then as you get a bigger hanger, it's going to go beyond that 32 or 36 cent price. But we tried to and you were kind of the one who was pushing it, is the idea of parity. But the parity at that point was between the residents versus the commercial. And, you know, we got to the point where we were wrapping our minds around the best, most reasonable way to solve all these various problems. I'll give my turn, but I want to step on you. by monopolizing the entire thing.

Thank you, Paul.

Thank you.

All right. The last one is I think that we have a litigation risk for a novel fee. We're implementing an additional per aircraft base fee. It's novel. It's a novel approach without any regional comparables. And it might be interpreted as a layered fee. on top of access or square footage fees, duplicate recovery, increased litigation exposure. I'm really worried about that one. I don't want to be the one on the forefront of this fee. I think we should wait for another airport to try something like that and follow suit. My other comments, I also really like what was provided by our neighbor here. And particularly in section nine, like the path moving forward. Printed this, I read it a couple of times. I think it's kind of funny, but to start at the ground level, it's a fine access. What does this even mean? What does access mean on a residential side? It looks a little strange on that side. So on this paper B, so it says, publish a legal access category matrix. So commissioned a neutral title easement review of all air park parcels. Make a map. Who has direct deeded access, dormant, or no access? Who has a 1987 agreement? What's commercial? We need to understand our user. We don't even understand our user. It is a really complicated. If you go look at the residential side, some of the parcels, if you look in our little neighborhood directory, it looks like, oh, this may have access. But if you actually go look, There's no way that house has access. There's like trees, landscaping. And so started the base level of saying, who even has, what is access? Who has it?

When they go to sell their house and their real estate listing showed all the characteristics and the value of the house, don't they mention access?

It has access to the aircraft. If we're going to put a fee to it, can they really get an aircraft there? Maybe not. We need to understand that. We need to understand that. So I think that was like a base ground. Where do you even start? Let's just make defined terms. Let's understand who has access. And then I really like the idea of the community outreach. We make it big. Let's pull in questions from our community. At the last meeting, I think they gave us a whole list. I think we have 146 questions from the community to answer. Yeah, there's like 143 questions. HOA put this together to help them understand. We should know the answers as well. We should have known the answers to a lot of these questions before we started building them, in my opinion. I think I'm almost getting close to being done. But I'm really looking forward to the legal review. I'm really interested to see. And I hope during the legal review that it's also about the spirit of what's been created and the spirit of the history of the artwork. I thank you for this time. All right, I'll pass it.

Thank you for your input.

There's certainly a lot of thoughtful information that's been presented that I haven't had the opportunity to consider before. So you've done clearly a lot of work gathering information that I think we're not going to come up with a quick and easy solution. So I do want to take that thoughtful information and give some thought to it to, to come up with what comments or opinions that I have on it. So. Thank you for bringing all this out and all the work that you guys are clearly doing to make sure that we have a solid background of facts to evaluate for this.

That's all I got, Paul. Thank you. You're next.

You're in the next chair. I just want to make sure. Three minutes.

Three minutes. You know I can't do it. I think there is a general misconception of what we did here. And I want to make sure that in my mind, not only the people here, people out there fully understand the intent of this board. For your benefit, guarding ground, the lease for the FBO and Airport management fee. Three of us were here when we first started, and that was our first charge when we got together. That was, and you were there. There was no clarity as to what the hell was going on with the finances of the airport. And we struggled, struggled. We came up with the recommendation that split it out. Let's see what happens. Well, that's kind of a be careful what you wish for scenario. Because now we're faced with this gentleman and the town has made the commitment to provide us with financial information on a periodic basis. And what did we get out of it? A great deal of clarity. Now, some of that clarity sort of sucks because we're faced with other issues. But I use that as an example of the proposed fee structure. I don't know about you all, but my whole mental thought process on doing it and doing what we did was only to suggest some ideas that we as a collective group came up with. Never in a million years did I ever suppose that what this board proposed would ever be enacted by the council or recommended by the town staff as verbatim what we suggested. I never expected that. I still think that a lot of what we suggested, and it is only a suggestion. For me, it was how do we get to a starting point? Just like how do we get clarity? Well, let's split it apart. So in my mind, it's like where do we start? Well, let's build this list of suggestions on how we might get to clarity. zero sum on the annual revenue of the airport. Never in a million years did I ever expect that an $800 fee for a particular hangar, a resident, or what have you, I never expected any of it to just be absorbed and enacted by the council and quite frankly at this point with the council i'd be pretty pissed off if that if that happened and i wouldn't be standing right with every single one of you saying no way and that's why hearing some of the comments and what i feedback i've gotten from either directly at lunch with braun and what he did the way he explained it to me how he got there That's the way it should be done. Yeah, he's using AI. But as he explained it to me, no, I present the questions and the interaction with AI from a neutral point of view and being very careful not to inject any of my own opinions in doing the research. That's why he comes out with a more neutral approach. response or answer. Here's some recommendations. So I think that's helpful. This is a complicated situation. It always has been. It has been from the beginning. I know we spent a lot of time trying to figure out some recommendations, and I underline the word recommendation. I would not be surprised if whatever ends up two, three years from now being the final scenario, I would not be surprised if it doesn't mirror what we suggested at all. But I think the process that we're going through is the right one. We, as a board, took the first shot. We, as a board, put a spreadsheet with some recommendations to the town staff. But, and I reiterate, did it last time to you, that we all always insisted that the town engage a lawyer who is an expert in this field to get answers to questions that we knew and we went into it knowing we couldn't get as to the easement agreements. the FAA regulations or roadblocks that may keep us from even doing any of the things that we suggested, we had no idea. I think this body, if we're doing our job, we listen, we take in as much information and discussion from people who are stakeholders, evaluate it, and then, lack of a better expression, Sit back and wait. Just sit back and wait and see what comes up. See what more information we get. Then we do our job. We engage and add additional recommendations or suggestions based on what we find and what we hear to town staff and to the council because we don't know at this point what we don't know. We will get more information. But I think this discussion and the ongoing discussions based on additional information, similar to going back, we have a lot of clarity on what's happening with the finances. And that has allowed us to additionally make more recommendations as more information that we get. If we don't have... some sort of engagement with these folks. And I'm talking about everybody, not just the residents, because I, my company is a through the fence fee participant because I own property on the other side in the commercial realm. I keep harping on it because it annoys me, but I have a 2,500 square foot office that has no hangar. My taxes on that 2,500 square foot office every year, it's now $17,000 a year. What do I get out of it? I still pay through the HOA a portion of the through the fence fee. I'm happy to pay it. I'm not happy about paying $17,000 a year for property taxes, but it's a commercial property. There are other entities there that are in the same HO development. They do have hangers and they do have airplanes. They're paying a through the fence fee and they should pay a through the fence fee. Are they truly a commercial operator? No, they're just some guy who has a business, who has a warehouse in the back they can store their airplane in. They are technically a resident of The airport. It's not an air park. It's a business park. But these are all things that need to be fleshed out. I think we, as a board, we do listen to them. And what we had two months ago in terms of the visions in our minds, for every single one of us, I know it has for me, has somewhat changed. based on the feedback that I've gotten, that you've gotten, clearly you've gotten, that we get here in these meetings, which is wonderful, that allows us to develop even more recommendations so that we can gradually move forward to help these folks get to a better spot. But we don't have all the information that we're going to need or that we're going to be available to us. I think we're doing the right thing. And I think we... are doing a good job. I think what we did was great. But I want to make sure that everybody understands, at least from my perspective, never in a million years did I anticipate that what we presented in our suggestions was going to be accepted and enacted. I think that would have been a huge mistake. It's not going to happen. Everybody needs to at least believe when we say it. It's just a starting point.

I think the reality is this is the process. And we started it. I think we're doing the right thing. We're learning as we go. And there is no manual that says this is the way the process is supposed to be.

But it's critical and it's imperative. And I know the council caught a lot of heat for the oil and gas thing. I want to make sure that this airport thing doesn't get sucked into that same criticism, which is lack of communication, lack of conversation. This may be a difficult process. It may take us a long time to get there. But this is so new and so what's the word? Revolutionary, if you will. Okay, I don't mind being a revolutionary, but I don't want to be a revolutionary where I'm putting a gun to somebody's head and saying, hey, we got to do this. No, I want to be a revolutionary where we are creative. We think about what we're doing. We listen to people who are here giving us their input, people who are doing it through our liaisons. people who are going through the council, and even there's probably a lot of opinions on town staff that you're having amongst yourselves that are valuable to us. Well, you should.

We don't think. We just do.

I don't believe that.

I think the difference you're describing is not the difference, but it's the difference between revolutionary and evolution. Sure. Evolving and making it better. That's correct.

This is a democracy. No one is saying this is the way that... Only counsel can make that final decision work.

I have a philosophy that I've always lived by, and that philosophy is you cannot fight progress. Progress is going to happen no matter what. If you fight it, you're going to lose. You will come out on the end of it very disappointed. But if you embrace progress and make it work for you, with you, You won't get everything you want, but you will come out a much happier individual because that progress, that train is coming down the tracks and it's going to run you over if you try and fight it. But I think what we've done and what we're doing is the right way to do it. I like what we've done. I enjoy the feedback because what happens? People come with ideas that you never even considered. And I never expected when we did what we did to be able to consider every aspect of it. But I think what we did was great. I think we continue to move forward. Not get in a hurry. Make sure that we do have, if not one, several town hall type conversations with people. I'm happy to go and talk. sit and discuss it with them. But I think that makes everybody feel like they're part of the discussions and part of the consideration and you don't get labeled with trying to ram something through because that was never our intention. And my intention was never to be presented. Just, you know, sign off, here we go. That would have been a huge mistake.

Yeah, I think where we came up short is we didn't communicate what the process was going to be. And I agree with everything you said, Paul.

But we can fix it.

We can. And I think going forward, we need to talk about how do we fix it. Absolutely. Jason having a meeting August 1st is a great start, but we got to do, we got to do more after that to communicate the process and that we're listening.

But I want to make sure that everybody out there understands that our intention and it never was to to push something through without any engagement from those that are not part of the board. At least for me, my expectation was never to shove something down everybody's throat.

And I think the perception was we made a recommendation and immediately went to council in a meeting. And I think people were kind of freaked out about that. And if we had to do it over again, we should have took some more time.

What it could have should have is always, you can't fix it.

I understand. I'm just saying, based on the fact that we scare people, is what I heard, is we just fail to communicate well. So let's go forward and communicate better.

That's one of the pieces of getting more information. There's the legal, you know, the lawyer's interpretation of what's out there. That's information. But you're right. Part of the information that we've received is people feel like they didn't know. And we can fix that. And that's what I'm saying is take the information and the feedback we're getting. That's one of them. and move forward in a manner that corrects, interprets, evaluates, and we can come back and continue to make ongoing recommendations. And that's how we will succeed because we're, I mean, to some degree, we're the conduit to all of it.

And as a board, we are bringing a lot more clarity to the operations, the costs, the finances, of responsibly running this airport. Should continue to do it.

Yeah.

Anyways.

Thank you, Paul. In the interest of time, I'm just going to kind of skip to where I was going to get at the end and just say, I think we need to consider a revision to our recommendation to remove a fee from dormant or non-users. Just take it off the table completely. And that... Because... they're not receiving a use and it opens up the town to some, you know, liability exposure. And so I think we need to move the needle towards the goal. The goal was closing that gap. That number was approximately 230,000 process started a long time ago. There's been a lot of, you know, a lot of work done, a lot of comments done, um, And I, you know, was going to do a little bit more tonight, but I'll just leave that part there. And that's all I'm going to say about it. And I want to try and give Jennifer a little bit of time to have her more than a runway discussion.

Sorry. Do you mind if I go ahead? Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. So, uh, I just want to say that I think as far as the public's perception, things like that, I think I don't want you guys to take that on. I think we had a study session. There were several people from the air park that spoke directly to council. You guys are here to advise us, and that's exactly what you did. And I think that was... unfortunately the misconception that the gentleman who came to speak, I think had that, you know, that this was somehow concocted that you guys were qualified or authorized or whatever. And I kind of, I've had numerous times where I've had people come up to me and they're, they're like, say something that is, I understand they're upset, but they say something that's just profoundly, like, unfactual. And you have to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on. Let's step back and look at what the actual issue is and the actual concerns are. And I very much appreciate what Bron did here, because I think... taking that dispassionate view, I think, helps move everything forward. I would say that I agree, and I think the thought process was already in this way, that, yeah, if somebody has dormant or no access, that is a question. I want to dispel the thing, because I know it was brought up about legal advice to this body or other things like that, that the, um, And I don't want this board to ever feel like if you guys need legal advice, you're all more than welcome to send emails to the town attorney. The cool thing now is we have an on-staff town attorney. So it's not like it's billable hours for doing that, unless it is something that needs to go up to the airport attorney, because we do hire outside attorneys and they tend to be more expensive than But that's a resource that you guys have. You're more than welcome to do that. Personally, I prefer that go through the staff liaisons and then up, but it is available. But at the same time, I think the thought of... that this board brings liability to the town that that's never going to happen because that's, that's, that's why we have attorneys. So it was never going to get to the point. If there is something that is legally impermissible or puts us at risk, uh, that gets decided before ever we ever made decisions. So that is, that is a council responsibility. That is not the, uh, the only one in there really not an advisory board would be planning commission and planning commission. We do have an attorney that's, that's there at the meetings. But again, those are public hearings. A lot of times, uh, which get into quasi judicial, there's different rules for those sorts of things. So, um, I think unfortunately there was a misconception and I, in hindsight, I wish we'd go back and have that conversation beforehand because the reality is, and I always want to be upfront with people and, and our airport, is under attack from a lot of different sources. And I think we've talked many times. We want to make known that this is an important asset to the town and we want to protect it. The mayor of Superior, for whatever reason, is fighting what I think is a losing battle. It's amazing to me because he's an attorney, but he is fighting a battle with Rocky Mountain, and he's taking it to the state legislator. He's going to Joe Neguse, and they're trying to take this to federal law that, you know, municipalities have a right to have some control over airport operations. Now, I, I think that's a complete non-starter, but the relationship that our airport has with, with Rocky mountain, with Longmont, with Boulder, um, and because the flight school operations, you know, the, the, this came up where there's, we had a vote on this here, right? We, we, we were going to be against landing fees. Okay. And I am completely with you on that. And I just thought, but I'm, as I said, I'm one of seven people and I don't know right now that, If that were to come up and superiors pushing it, uh, we're part of inner compacts with these things. If they push it, if it came to a vote and came a four year, there's a good chance that might pass. And so when we brought up these fee assessments that gave me a tremendous amount of leverage to stop other things from coming forward and I'm not saying that we implement things in this fashion, but this all goes back to that decision that we made in 2020 that we were going to separate this out. And that was the right decision to make because at some point, just because of life, Jason is not always going to be the airport manager. Vector error is not, well, I mean, his son could maybe take over the business and we have 30 more years, but we don't necessarily know that vector error is going to be the FBO operator ad infinitum. Jason is giving us an incredible deal right now for what he offers for the staff that's out there. And that will have an effect on the budget. And you already heard it here tonight on what the real numbers are. So this is a real problem, and that's what I want to emphasize to the folks at the airport. We don't want to fight against you, but we have a problem that we need to solve. And we're not going to get there all the way at once. But when I hear things like, you guys have enough property tax to cover all the problems there, I'm sorry, that's incorrect. I realize there's a problem with the deed stuff, and we need to get to the end of that. And I'm looking for that more than anyone else. But there's bigger fish to fry if we end up in a battle with these other municipalities, and then we've got landing fees coming down the pike, being shoved down our throat. which I don't want to see, but I've only got so much control over that. So I just want to offer that perspective. And, you know, again, I have so many friends out at the air park and Dory Van Lone is a dear friend. Tom was a mentor to me and I miss him every day. And we need, you know, we need those people's help. So let's collaboratively work on this problem and come to a solution. And we want to protect the airport.

Thank you. Real quick. Sure. You have that spreadsheet on your computer?

Yep. What do you want to see?

I kind of remember that originally we had a discussion about three tiers of fees, direct access, needed access, no access. I distinctly remember that we came to the conclusion that folks that don't have a hangar, don't have access, they just got a house. We already determined that they pay nothing. It was not part of our fee structure. I don't know if it was specifically cited in the spreadsheet, but I remember we all came to the conclusion that if you have a house that's just, and I'm sorry, she's gone. But if you have a house that happens to be one of the 129 houses at the airport, but you don't fly a plane, you don't have a hangar, you don't have access, you're never going to have access to a taxiway or a runway. We don't want you to pay anything. We don't think you should pay anything. You shouldn't have to pay anything. Is that still in there?

Yes. The proposal that we brought to council from this board said here. Actually, let me join the meeting. If my computer doesn't die before I get in there. Can I get the sheet under?

Okay.

But yes, basically, the proposal specified that the through the fence residential fees would be charged to properties with access, which I don't remember the exact details of what you define that in. And part of that was going to be the title research that needed to be done on who had access.

Properties are in your spreadsheet.

Fifty five.

That have some sort of access. 55 on top of 30. 33 are currently paying.

33 are currently paying and another 22 that theoretically have access right now but don't have access.

Then all the others do not. Yes. I think our agreement or conclusion was that those people that do not, will not, cannot, we all came to the agreement that they should not have to pay anything. Which kind of almost gets you to where you just mentioned, but I go back to, okay, we have an explanation. People understand, by no means did we have an expectation that those individuals that fell into that category that he had already established would not pay anything, were not expected to pay anything on our suggestions.

So my point is, you know, there's 33 people paying right now. They're paying $600 a year, which is $50 a month times 12 months. $50 a month was the title. Right. So, and I think all, but maybe a couple are paying that maybe one is paying something based off the 1987. Right. But what I, We don't need to get to that number right away, and we shouldn't. It should be a long-term goal. I agree. But I want us to consider removing a fee for people that have dormant deeded access.

That's the additional category beyond the people who just can't.

That's Susan, I think it was. They have a deeded access. They're not using it. Now, if you have a deeded access and your neighbor built something that blocks that access, that's a separate issue or whatever might be. But the fee should be based on a use, and the use is going through the fence to access the airport. And so I'd like to just have this be a continuing discussion, make it an item for next meeting. And we can kind of talk a little bit more and then, you know, consider a motion at that point. This discussion has taken a little more time than I thought it was. I do want to ask you, what did we recommend for tie-down fee? Oh, you got it up there. $100.

$10 to $20 for the nightly tie-down and $50 to $100 for the monthly tie-down.

Okay. Okay. So that, I mean, that 100, if you tied it, would mean 1,200 for residents for just the through the fence portion, which is kind of, you know, that was the reason I put this on tonight was just to discuss that. So it would be the third item. They have access, no hanger. So I'd like for you all to consider Removing that from this discussion. And then that takes away, well, do you have a deeded access or you do not have a deeded access? That all just gets removed if you take that item out.

Sorry, the third item.

So you have a deeded access, but you're not using it. And so we're not trying to impose a fee for something that's not being used. The base fee, I think we can have a further discussion later about that. I don't want to take any more time on that part.

I think the only thing that we may want to be careful about, and I'm kind of trying to jog the memory when we came up with this, if you take the Main Street business, there's several hangars over there that are not being used for airport purposes. and i think it was our intent was to bring them into the fold and trying to bring them in the fold looking at parity we looked at the air park and said well we get the same condition going on right at the air park but don't they fall into access and hanger doesn't matter if you're

Using the hangar.

I want to kind of just focus on the residential side. I think there needs to be more discussion on the commercial side. Main Street, there's some things that I've heard lately about what's going on over there with Odyssey.

Odyssey.

Yeah. And that was one thing we were trying to address, which is now a non-issue, you know, if they're going away. But specifically to the residential without a hanger, deeded access with no hanger, I'd like to consider making a revision. Not tonight. We can continue this at the next meeting. And then we can maybe talk about the base fee as well. But all of this, you know, to go from $600 to $800 a year, you know, in the last five years, my rent at Rocky Mountain has gone up $800 a year for a basic hangar. But I think any of this has to be ramped up, phased in, however you want to say it, over time. And that's it.

And are you suggesting an amendment then?

I'm suggesting a recommendation. We don't need to... pull back and start over. We've done way too much work. I think what we provided was a preliminary fee structure, and maybe it should have been titled that, but that's an image thing. So you start there, you work through some more stuff, and then we can make revisions as we go on. So it's a revision to our recommendation. And that's where I think it needs to go to totally – Start over is too much. And we're not going to answer all 146 questions. It's just not going to happen. We'll try and answer as much as possible. I'm open to public comment. I'm open to emails. My email is published. That all gets factored into everything that happens. Let's get AI to answer.

Would you agree that a lot of... recommendations, further recommendations in the future are predicated on the responses that we get from legal, from FAA, and the ongoing process.

Yeah, removing that third item takes the whole, well, deeded access question kind of out. It just removes it from the equation and

You know, I just, I think. But we have more information now than we did when we first did it.

Yes, we do.

And to sit on additional information and not do anything, that would be an error on our part. evaluating what we're hearing as we get more information and we'll continue to get more I agree with you 100% maybe saying it a different way but I agree with you as we get more information make further recommendations to the council based on the information that we get this is one of them and that's how we do our job and we should do it yeah okay

Thank you. I appreciate that.

You're welcome. Do you want to put this item, your last item, can we move that to the next meeting? Or would you like...

I wouldn't mind having it just maybe because we have a report to the council coming up that if you want to look at some of this as something you might want to mention to council or... I hopefully won't take too long. I promise. Steve, you're going to give me the floor. Go ahead. Yes. All right. Thanks, Steve.

Gifts.

Gifts. Gifts. Gifts.

Gifts. Gifts.

We can pass them however many we need. Okay.

Thank you.

Oh, yes, I need one back.

You can have two back.

Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you for this. Okay, as you all know, Erie is a valuable asset. We have this in our own backyard. Just when we finish, we've been having very difficult conversations that may overshadow that fact. And I would like to suggest that the board take an active role in reframing how the airport is understood. and valued by the broader community. So I am calling this initiative More Than a Runway. I have several examples that demonstrate how the airport can strengthen community connections. And I'd like to invite you to contribute to ideas to help shape this initiative. So if you would open this up from the first one, it's kind of what's included in this little packet that I made. And I'm gonna move pretty quick, so then I'll go on to the second ones. So I'm calling this more than a runway. So Erie Municipal Airport is more than municipal structure. It is part of Erie's history, identity, and future. So the first one would be describing a shared history. So first envisioned in the mid to late 1970s as a premier flying community. The airport and air park were intentionally designed from inception to be a unified, integrated system. The homes, the taxiways, and the runways were built to work in harmony, creating something increasingly rare, a seamless and lasting connection between the airport and a residential neighborhood. For nearly five decades, the airport and the air park have grown together, becoming an important part of Gary's character, heritage, and identity. An interconnected ecosystem. When the airport is viewed as only pavement buildings and operating expenses, it is easily to overlook the people, businesses, investments, and opportunities connected to it. Erie Municipal Airport is not an isolated facility. Together with the air park, airport tenants, aviation businesses, aircraft owners, educators, visitors, it forms a living interconnected ecosystem. Each part depends on the strength and vitality of the others. A well-managed airport supports local business, protects public and private investment, generates economic activity, connects Erie to the region, and creates opportunities for education, workforce development, and entrepreneurship. When airport infrastructure is allowed to decline, the effects extend far beyond the runway. Business confidence weakens, investment slows, property values decrease, and a valuable community asset becomes increasingly difficult and costly to restore. Stewardship, the airport, the air park, and the businesses located on the field share a common future. This unique relationship deserves thoughtful long-term stewardship. Preserving this ecosystem is about more than maintaining a runway. This is about embracing a shared identity, honoring Erie's aviation history, protecting existing community investments, and actively fostering new opportunities for growth, partnership, and economic vitality. Moving on to the next page, I like to call this one Fly and Be Local. So the town of Erie has launched the Erie Bee. I don't know if you've seen it around town. kind of neat, a micro-transmit service. So it's on-demand transportation option, and you can book it seven days in advance. And if you look at the area that's covered, you can see that the airport is in the service region So what I was thinking that we could do is this offers an opportunity for Erie Airport to bring pilots, passengers, visitors into our community. Now with the Erie Bee, we have the opportunity to help visitors go beyond the airport to experience Erie's local business and find a supply and be local. I want it to be a promotion that would encourage airport users to take the Erie Bee from the airport to participate in Erie restaurant shops and services. How it works is very simple. Land at Erie, ride the Erie Bee into town, support the business, and then maybe you get a discount. So businesses can offer a variety of different things. They can choose their own incentive, so maybe 10% off purchase, free drink, visitor special, some promotion. So why would we do this? This promotion introduces airport visitors to Erie, supports local commerce, and promotes the Erie Bee as a convenient connection between the airport and the town. It also helps to show that Erie Minnesota Airport is more than a runway. It is a doorway to the community. So I would like to do a 90 degree pilot program. and coordinate this with the Erie Chamber of Commerce and a small group of interested businesses. The program can be promoted through local airport signage, Erie Bee materials, local window disc decals, sound communication, a published list of participating applications. That kind of sums it up for the Erie Bee. Thoughts?

It's great.

This is like a club car.

Jennifer, this is awesome. It really is. It seems like I've seen something from another airport kind of not quite the same, but like they're kind of forget which Longmont or Boulder. One of like a community social media page was trying to connect. But no, I mean, The more we connect the airport with the community, the better the airport will be, and the better the community will be for it. The more likely it is to survive. Yes. this is all great. And, and, you know, please.

Well, let me finish real quick before I let you go. Don't get, don't get an idea that I'm done. The next one is something that we've already been talking about. Michael, you've talked about many times is how do we take advantage of the Sundance film festival? Yeah. Advertising that, how do we get people who come here to visit Erie, maybe even making a package. So this is something this board has already talked about. I'm just quoting it in this initiative of More Than a Runway. And then this other thing is my passion. So I would like to talk to you about this opportunity for all of you here in Erie. So I'd like, this is Aviation Careers Start Here in Erie's Old Backyard. I'm going to call it Aviation's Next Generation. So aviation is an industry that touches every community. It supports business, tourism, agriculture, emergency response, military readiness, medical transport, disaster relief, and the movement of people and goods throughout the world. The aviation industry is currently experiencing a nationwide shortage of aviation professionals. For students here in Erie, that shortage represents an extraordinary opportunity. These are skilled, high-paying careers with clear advancement pathways. Students can begin preparing for them while still in high school right here in our hometown. So strategic positioning, having an airport in the community transforms aviation from something students only dreamed out into something they can see, experience, and pursue close to home. By connecting education, workforce development, and a community airport, Erie has an opportunity to inspire the next generation aviation professionals while strengthening the region's future workforce and economy. Number one is the opportunity. The aviation industry needs the next generation of professionals today. Federal and industry data show measurable workforce demand across aviation pathways, with thousands of annual openings projected for pilots, aircraft, and avionics technicians, and continued FAA hiring for air traffic controllers. Unmanned aircraft systems, UAS, are expanding aviation into new fields. Commercial drone operators are creating opportunities in remote sensing, mapping, infrastructure, inspections, utility, public safety, emergency response. Aviation is more than flying. Industry supports a broad range of roles in technology, engineering, maintenance, manufacturing, operations, public service, and business. Number two is the pathway. So start in high school tuition-free through Ames Community Programs. Through Ames Community College, Erie students can begin their aviation education before graduating from high school tuition-free. The expenses are covered by the school district. which is amazing. We have something called Career Academy or Career Enrollment, so juniors and seniors can earn college credit and certifications while still in high school and graduate on a path towards an aviation career. They will get dual credit, so receive college-level courses through AIMS will allow students to earn high school and college credit at the same time. Degree programs or FAA-aligned degrees in aviation, including professional pilot, general aviation pilot, air traffic control, unmanned aircraft systems, sciences, and aircraft maintenance technicians. Number three, the local connection. This is Erie Municipal Airport. Erie has something many towns do not, its own airport. A community airfield owned by the town of Erie just south of downtown Erie Municipal Airport is a welcoming general aviation airport. The local airport turns someday somewhere into here and now. A place where students can experience aviation firsthand is a bridge between education, workforce development, and a rewarding aviation career. Erie Municipal Airport is more than a runway. It is a gateway to opportunity. It gives our community a direct connection to aviation careers, hands-on learning, and to Colorado's growing aviation economy. When paired with a local education pathway, Erie can help students see aviation not as an unreachable dream, but as a future that can begin right here at home. And I included the different programs that AIMS offers. So our students, our youth can go to college tuition-free. And I think they need to know, our community needs to know that this is out there.

Absolutely. that question. This is awesome. This is great.

Did you do this?

It was a little help if AI did that.

This is great. Thank you.

I think a lot of this is right up Julian's alley, so I'll make sure he gets all this information. Thank you.

You're welcome. I'll be there for you.

Yeah, I think with the Sundance Film Festival, there's definitely opportunities there for the airport, for Vector to advertise for that. So yeah, I think this is something that the town should see. Fortunately, we have to do our presentation while you may be doing that.

The presentation is due tomorrow.

Yeah. So we have to finalize that. homogenized all the presentations, unfortunately. And so I have to see how we can try and work some of this into there. I don't think we'll have quite the impact, but yeah.

I just want our community to know about it. I just want to, this is an asset.

Sure.

I just want to reframe it.

Yeah, 100%.

How is that presentation presented?

It's presented on the 28th of this month. Yeah, I'll be presenting it. But the PowerPoint is due tomorrow.

But it's template-based.

Yeah. They have these templates now and take some of the creativity out of it.

All ruined up for everybody. Yeah.

i said paul ruined it for everybody one of these years i'm sure when i you went crazy when i drew the line on the aerial oh yeah sorry all right well thank you everybody uh this is this has been good um Let's, we'll work on revising those minutes and we'll continue this fee discussion and, you know, community engagement is an ongoing thing for sure. That being said, motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor? Yes. Thank you.

Bobby, can I give you my extra folder so you can share? Oh, thank you.