Board of Public Utilities - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. Pursuant to the city council rules of procedure and order of business resolution, the members of all boards and commissions and the public are reminded that they must preserve order and decorum throughout the meeting. In that regard, members of boards and commissions and the public are advised that any delay or disruption in the proceedings or a refusal to obey the orders of the board or commission or the presiding officer constitutes a violation of these rules. The city of Riverside is committed to fostering a workplace that provides dignity, respect, and civility to our employees, customers, and the public they serve. The city of Riverside wishes to make all of its public meetings accessible to the public.

Upon request, this agenda will be made available in appropriate alternative formats to persons with disabilities as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Any person with a disability who requires a modification or accommodation in order to participate in a meeting should direct such request to the city's ADA coordinator. Alright. I would like to welcome you to the February 2026 Airport Commission meeting. The meeting is called to order at 03:02.

Please stand, remove all hats and hoods, and join the pledge of allegiance. I pledge May we have roll call, please?

Absolutely. Good afternoon, commissioners. We'll start off with commissioner Gibbs. Present. Commissioner Alderet. Present. Commissioner Trigueros.

Present.

Commissioner Del Pino.

Present.

Commissioner Loft House.

Present.

And commissioner Gibbs will be absent. Thank you.

Gambling. Sorry.

Commissioner Gambling. Absent. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you so much. Alright. Item number one is public comments and do comment on any matters within the jurisdiction of the airport commission. You're invited to participate in person or call (669) 900-6833. Do we have any comments online?

We have no comments from online or in person. Thank you.

Thank you. We will close public comment and we'll move to item number two on the consent calendar and item number two on the consent calendars review and approval of the meeting minutes from 01/08/2026.

Motion to approve. Second the motion.

Thank you. May I have a first from Alderette and a second from Trigueros. We'll now vote. Commissioner Gibbs? Yes. Alderette? Yes. Del Pino? Yes. And Loft House?

Yes. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. We'll move on to item three on the discussion calendar. And item three is the ad hoc committee twenty twenty six airport commission work plan.

Thank you. Commissioner Troguero, since you're the lead on this, would you like to speak on it for a few minutes?

Yes, sir. Thank you. First and foremost, I would like to thank commissioner Lofpiles and commissioner Del Pino for assisting me in in getting this together. Without their help, I wouldn't have been able to get this done on time. So presented in front of us is the airport commission twenty twenty six work plan, we came up with a couple of things that we wanna address and we want to kinda put forth to move forward as a a commission in a whole.

First one is gonna be entering the commission representation and participation, ensuring all representative wards present at the airport commission meetings by maintaining a record commission attendance of rate of at least 85%. I think we're we're well on track for that. Second is gonna be support safety and compliance initiatives. In other words, we want to review and provide input on significant airport safety compliance and operational matters represented to the commission, including those related to FAA grant assurances, airport plan updates, safety management initiatives. We also want to to support this charge to establish an ongoing commissioner education initiative to ensure the common understanding of safety and compliance requirements.

What we wanna touch up on that is just so that as commissioners, we don't always necessarily have the knowledge. So we wanna create this education so that we are up to speed on airport terminology and the different proposals that are are are being put in place for the airport's continued growth. We also want to enhance communicator community and stakeholder engagement by reviewing current outreach feedback mechanisms such as the attendance surveys to ask to assess the data usability, potential actions, needed changes moving forward. And last but not least, increase the accountability, encourage commissioner participation in airport related activities, establish a calendar of events for the commissioners to sign up for, and add informal reporting mechanism for the commissioners to share event observations as part of the commission agenda. In other words, whatever we experience throughout the month, we can come in and report it.

That way, could show not just show community engagement, but also be true to our to our commission here. And that's what I got.

Great. Thank you so much. Any questions or any further comments from the commissioner? I don't think we have any. I guess before we get comments, need to see if we have any public comment first.

Okay.

Actually, I'll say something. Don't have much to add. Thank you for sharing. But, yeah, just we we got together and we're talking about kind of, you know, how we can be more of Valley than we already are as a commission. And so these are the kind of things that we came up with. I wanted to ask you guys about how you feel about the ongoing commissioner education initiative aspect of it. So the one the three of us were talking, we have different backgrounds. Education, finance, actually works with FAA. Right? Or, I mean, did.

So and so we bring different strengths to the commission. But there are certain thing and I'm going through pilot school and all that. There are certain things that I have no idea about when it comes to airport management and, you know, terminology and different things outside of the wonderful letters that we get every month on what goes on at the airport, and I learn certain things. But so I just wanted to know, like, how do you guys feel about that aspect? And, like, us I don't wanna say, like, we were talking about, like, reading a book together. So it doesn't need like that. We're all busy. But I'm saying, like, what would it look like for you guys if for us to do something together where we learn certain things together or go to certain conferences or certain events together?

Go ahead.

So we had talked one time about touring the facility altogether. There's something about that. Correct?

That is correct. With certain acts, Brown Act, Sunshine Act, it has to be filmed. It would be agendized. It would have to be videotaped, all that. So we could break it up, though. We could break it up in twos and threes. We can have more than three, and then it'd be a quorum if it's after that. So we can work on that. But also coming to events and being part of the management process, I think that might help get a little better understanding of what's going on.

I think that's a great idea maybe to break it up into, you know, groups of three, making sure that everyone like everyone's had a tour of the air traffic control tower. I think it's really critical, an airfield tour, learning about as commissioner Del Pino talked about finance, learning about grant assurances, the aviation world is completely separate, and there are obligations that airports have to have that aren't applicable, you know, to any other industry. So it's really important to understand those obligations and why airports make the decisions they make behind that. I think it's great. And things like I see, you know, April 11 is on my calendar for aerospace day, which should be really exciting and making sure that we're there and seeing what the airport's doing.

So I

think it's a great idea.

No. And I think that's a great idea too is, you know, it when I came on, I didn't know a lot about this. So you'll slowly start to learn. So it's it's important to keep commissioners here that are that are here and present and willing to, you know, go through the steps because there's a learning curve. It's like almost like the first first term is like a learning curve. Right? You start learning, and I think you start really getting very beneficial commissioners after they've sat here. They've marinated in it and then get some really good feedback.

Yeah. Any other comments on this one?

I'll just add to that since that came up. We the three of us realized as soon as we sat down that none of us had the continuity of experience on serving on the commission. And and so we you know, if we didn't quite hit it head on with this work plan, we're we're here to listen to the feedback from others. We we we're not there's no part of us that's married to it in some way that says that we can't go back to the drawing board if that if that's called for. I don't know if that's formal part of proceedings or not, but I'm just saying that.

Okay? Great. Thank you. No. It looks

Thank you.

Looks great to me. Looks well thought out. Great. Okay. So now we vote to approve it. So I guess if there's no changes or anything to it, then we vote to approve it as it is. Or it doesn't sound like there's any changes submitted. It. Okay. So, we would vote on the work plan as it is presented to us.

I'll make the motion. Second the motion.

Alright. So, I have Commissioner Alderette first and Trigueros to second the motion. Let's go through the vote. Yes. Commissioner Gibbs. Yes. Commissioner Alderette. Yes. Commissioner Trigueros. Yes. Commissioner Del Pino. Yes. Commissioner Loft House. Yes. Thank you so much. This is very well done. Very nice. And commissioner will touch base with you with presenting that next month at the transportation commission.

Thank you. I look forward Great.

Thanks, guys. We'll move on now to item four. Item four on the calendar and that is the February 2026 airport manager's report.

Good afternoon, commissioners. Happy to present some highlights from the airport as well as our financials and our operational numbers. Fortunately, we are at a point in the year where I can present some full year data as far as our operational numbers. This is January 1 to December 31 this year. We are down somewhat from last year.

I think last year was a bit of an outlier. It was a very strong year, and it certainly was stronger than we anticipated. I think this year at 134,410 operations is about where we would expect it to be. Keep in mind that we had discussed at previous commission meetings the index number that we've included in parenthesis. We once accounted for overflights.

FA tower gave us numbers and we learned that that included overflights technically we don't consider to be an operation in the sense that it's a takeoff or landing utilizing our facilities, our our our infrastructure. So if we count for those overflights, still we see that it's about the same as it was last year at a 0.1% increase. But to be fair, we're no longer counting overflights and that's why it shows a reduction. But but even if we did, we're kinda flat from from the year prior. So we did not really see any strong growth through this calendar year.

But we're still averaging, you know, 300 to some months, 400 operations a day, which is still pretty strong. Comparing December 2025 to December 2024, we see a drop as well, 88.02, 8,802 operations for this past December compared to 9,681 operations December 2024. So still a a decline. I will say that as we are a couple of months into 2026, today was actually a very busy day at the airport. We saw the Flay Bob Express out there.

It just landed earlier, and it seems like it picked up maybe about 12 or 15 passengers, which is kind of interesting to see. So that's regularly scheduled service. I don't think we would call it that, but in any event, it was a it was a strong day today, which we typically see that after a day or two of rain where most people are grounded and there's not much activity. We get a nice day with some nice weather and everybody's up in the air again. So that's good.

But we're seeing good growth for this year. Of course, our schools, we have six flight schools in operation. California Babbage University is our largest. They currently have around two eighty students majoring in aviation flight. So this is a significant portion of our operational counts and they're already looking at some advanced enrollment numbers for fall and they're gonna be surpassing 300 plus flight students.

And this is at one of our six flight schools. So we're continuing to see good growth there. So who knows, we may end up 2026 even stronger than 2024 and we'll hope for that. As far as our finances are concerned, we are continuing to track well. We're aligned with our budget for the July 1.

Keep in mind, we're fiscal year for finances. So July 1 to 12/31/2025, our expenditures were $800,308.23 which is about 37.2% of our budget. Keep in mind that July 1 to December 31 is six months. So halfway through our fiscal year. So we should be at about 50%. So we're under our expenditures as far as our budget. And revenue is over budget. We're at 1,100,000.0 approximately for that six months out of a $2,200,000 budget round numbers. We're at 52.5%. So a little bit over budget with revenues.

Expenditures are interesting. They they don't they're not consistently tracking evenly over a twelve month period. So for example, we are currently reviewing bids to replace our airport marquee at the entrance to the airport and that will be a significant expenditure that will be reflected in months to come when that project is complete. So that is not something that we pay for every month obviously, but that coming out of our operating budget. So budgeted expenses kind of ebb and flow throughout the year.

But I'm comfortable with where we are right now. Even though we're below budget, it's a good place to be, but I don't want to be too far below budget. But at the same time, we recently had some pavement repairs at the airport, two locations that really needed some significant improvement. So we rehabbed the pavement and repaved those two relatively small areas, but $10,000 for each area. So that was a $20,000 expenditure for those two areas, and that's not something we do every month either.

So in any event, we'll continue to watch our our expenditures throughout the year, but I'm comfortable with where we are right now. And certainly, I like to see over budget on revenues as we continue to explore alternative revenue sources. You're familiar with the master plan update that we're currently going through. So I think that's gonna identify some additional revenue opportunities. Actually, we had our consultants in house this past Tuesday to do some boots on the ground work with our economic impact study and our economic development plan.

So I'm hoping to get some really good findings out of that as well. This will be an important year for the airport as we start to see those deliverables nearing the end of the production of those and we can benefit from that knowledge that hopefully it will present to us as we continue to improve what we're doing at the airport. So one of the projects that is actually ongoing as we speak is our hangar roofing project. We have three three different roofs that we're working on for the roofing replacement kinda I'll call it phase one because I have a lot of roofs at the airport that need need help. So I'll call this phase one kinda the worst of the worst.

This is a par flight hangar. This is a very large and one of the original aircraft hangars at the airport. It's it's a it's a large building with a number of, t hangars, in in under underneath the roof in this ParFlight hangar. It was a flat roof. It had been leaking over the years, and you can see on that picture on the top right just the the rot and and the wood that just is beyond beyond its its useful life clearly.

So they're probably halfway through with this project. The rain set them back a little bit, and we have more rain forecast earlier this next week. So that'll continue to delay that project, but they're making good good progress replacing the plywood decking as needed. If it's if it needed replacement, they're taking care of that. And that'll be a great benefit when finish that project.

Of course, we also have the terminal roof, the roof of our main terminal that will be replaced as part of this phase one and then the west wall of the Waypoint Aviation Building which has significant leaks as well. So we're looking forward to finishing all three of those sometime this spring depending on weather, but they're making good progress on the ParFlight hangar roof. Commissioner Del Pino has asked us to provide a briefing on our eVTOL efforts at Riverside Airport. So I did want to bring an update at today's commission meeting just to help the commission understand what we're trying to do on our end to attract this growing segment, this growing technology segment of the aviation industry. EVTOLs, of course, are electric vertical takeoff landing aircraft.

And many of the operators, including Supernal, are looking at a autonomous type of operation. So we have been recruiting Supernal going all the way back to the 2024. We've had a number of on-site meetings with them. I actually arranged a meeting with their chief pilot to meet with the FAA flight standards district office late last year. We were really hopeful that they would be willing to build a manufacturing test flight facility on 18 acres on our West Side that's ripe for development.

And we had spoken to them about that. Community economic development was involved in those discussions as well to really put forth our best foot forward not only from the airport but from the city perspective. The conclusion unfortunately by Supernal is that the area around Riverside Airport is too densely populated to support their test flight operation. FAA has pretty restrictive measures in place to avoid conducting test flights over densely populated areas as you might be able to understand. So they're currently testing their aircraft up at Mojave, which is a great place for that.

But all their engineers are based in Irvine. And the Irvine to Mojave commute can be a little longer than any of us would prefer. Right? So they're looking for a closer home base. I haven't lost hope and I still I still am hopeful that that Supernal will if not a test flight operation potentially a manufacturing facility on our airport.

We have one of the only rail spurs on airport in Southern California. So as far as bringing in, you know, composite materials that they use or even shipping out, you know, finished aircraft via rail, they could do that pretty easily located on the West Side. Also are very well aware of the number of institutions in the Riverside area that are graduating very skilled labor in engineering and aerospace engineering and other areas. So I think they were very pleased with the proposal we presented them. But as it stands right now, they've kind of pressed pause on Riverside Airport.

We've also reached out to Joby. I spoke with Joby at the National Business Aviation National Business Aircraft excuse me. National Business Aviation Association Annual Convention in Las Vegas in October. Met with him in person, discussed the land that we have available for development on our West Side. And we're continuing discussions with them.

The interesting thing about this space is that it is uber competitive and all of these companies are very tight to the chest and don't want to share much of anything, right? So that's difficult when you're trying to find out more about their plans and their intended operations and what they're looking for site. But in any event, we do what we can to try to share what we have to offer. The other thing that we have done in concert with community economic development, we replied to a go biz RFI request for information that is related to some eVTOL manufacturer. It was unspecified.

We're not quite sure who and we have not heard the outcome of that. But we the RFI was looking for an airport in California that could meet the needs of a eVTOL operator potentially manufacturing facility. So coordinated with economic development, we put together a really nice proposal and submitted that. And so we're currently waiting on that. That was back in September.

So just some of the efforts that we've had, we've been pretty active in this space and we'll continue to do so. It is very interesting segment of the aviation industry. You may have heard about Archer Aviation purchasing Hawthorne Airport, which kind of feels like, wow, nobody really saw that coming. Right? But when you really evaluate it, how close it's related to LA geographically.

And then, of course, we have the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles coming up in 2028. So all things kind of point to very positive for them. I think they paid a $126,000,000 for that for that airport, that GA airport. So that's one way, I guess, that some of these e b tall operators are trying to figure out how they can, you know, create a home base of operation at least here in Southern California. But we've been been very active in this space and and will continue to be.

Some of you may have heard about Lyft learning is it's hard to believe February and we're already planning for that, but it's a big event. I think last year we were at about 12,000 attendees so this has kinda outgrown anybody's expectations. Of course, LaMambo, the owner of our Riverside Airport Cafe, this was her brainchild and it's really grown into quite the event But we're looking forward to hosting that in October. The one thing I will say is we continue to see airports in Southern California and really across the country that are constrained in a number of ways, some even closing their doors due to community opposition and other factors. I am doing what I can.

Our staff certainly very supportive as well as city leadership at bringing the community out to the airport in a very positive environment, attending various events like this, leaving with a good feeling. We had an art gala, Ramona High School and the student artwork. We had an art gala last Friday. It was it was well attended and it had three resident artists panel presentation. You could tell the students were very happy to share about their artwork.

Their parents were there. Their friends were there. And it was a time for us to really bring the community out to the airport and showcase a bit of what we are and what we do. And that's all positive. And I think that as continue to explore other events and other opportunities, we're very open to opportunities in which we can bring the community out to the airport and hopefully provide some good experiences and help them think of the airport in very positive terms.

Some recent city council actions. We had the city council approve an increase in our master agreement with Meade and Hunt, which we had discussed before. They did approve that from 500,000 to 1,000,000. And of course, we only use that as needed for FAA funded projects. But that gives us a little more breathing room before that agreement expires.

And of course, we'll have to go back out to bid to select another consultant at some point, but we still have some time before that's needed. The city council also approved us adopting the name change from Riverside Municipal Airport to Riverside Airport. We have logo and graphics on the windows and the terminal and some other things to include even some new jackets for our staff, and we'll be getting new shirts and other things in the spring to continue to kinda present that new brand. But this included a resolution that we have sent to Caltrans Aeronautics. We we've also submitted this to FAA.

So this is a official name change from Riverside Municipal Airport to Riverside Airport. So I'm pleased about that. And some upcoming city council items. This is just a few of the things that later this month and into early March, depending on when we get on the Council agenda, we have a couple of long term agreements that we need to take to Council. We do have counsel authority to enter into month to month agreements with no issues, no need to go to counsel for month to month agreements.

But some of the businesses on the airport to justify their capital investment and their expenditures, they're looking for a little of a long term lease as you would understand. But these are certainly not long term in the sense of airports, five years or ten years, certainly well within what we would expect. So CAVU, new five year agreement Commemorative Air Force, new five year agreement, and then a new ten year agreement for Waypoint Aviation. So we'll be taking that those items to council either the end of this month or the March. And recommendation is that the airport commission received this February 2026 report. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Great. Thank you, doctor Prather. Before I ask for any questions from the commissioners, do we have any public comment?

We have no callers.

I just asked if there was any public comments either online or in the chambers if anyone would like to make a comment or ask a question about this item that doctor Prather just talked about.

Can I just ask them here? I have a handicap up here. Alright.

I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll your question so that it'll it'll be on the record.

Okay. I'm just I came a little late and I'm not sure exactly what you're covering. I support education. I'm a former teacher.

Oh, great.

But I also had a question related to something you may not even be covering today. But because of health issues, because of climate, because of our confinement in our air issues around here, and I'm a resident for a long while here, I have concern about how cargo planes as a part of something coming is going to be included. Are you discussing that at all? Because that to me is an extreme danger even though money speaks louder than words. I know from health, and we have children, and we have families here, and we have trouble with driving. It's crowded already. I'm if

able to to

you're going that. As a former educator. I I'm hope that makes sense that I'm here wondering if that's being covered. Is that being considered today at all?

I can

just So

I'm happy to answer that question.

Okay.

So we're Riverside Airport. I'll speak in the microphone. We're we're Riverside Airport, and we don't have cargo service at our airport.

Okay. So we're not I thank you. We're not covering that topic today because the 03:00 mission a meeting is very difficult for many people to come to. I had a hard time getting here, but I came. Not sure what you were going to be talking about, but because I saw how courageous people with a heart stopped the building ir of tremendous amount of to bring their cargo cargo planes.

Planes, and And it's it's affecting many. Therefore, if you were talking about that at all, I'm one little guy here sitting here at 03:00 or actually 03:36 appreciating the fact that you're here to represent your population, including the economical income that comes from building. And for education, that's solid. But to have the aspect of damage to the cargo plane aspect be included in the flight changes is something that I was wondering if you were talking about today. You are not. Is that correct?

That's correct. And I think you're referencing March Air Reserve Base.

Yes.

And we don't represent March. That's not within our I mean, you

sound shocked. You are sharp. And I'm just one little soul from once upon a time. But knowledge is power. And heart right now is important for us all. And when money out wins thoughts about caring for each other or our environment or just the future, I'm here with one little voice being noisy to see if that was a part of what you might be deciding today because constituents matter and democracy matters too and choices matter too. Thank you. I'm sorry.

Thank you.

I'm not talking about that at all today. Is that correct? That

is correct. We are we are so in in the future, if you would like to find out information, the city of Riverside publish es agendas for all of their council and, commission meetings on the city of Riverside website that you can find out what the topics are. And then the March air reserve base, they are they're a separate entity that controls the March air airport. But today, we are just talking about and addressing what doctor Prather was Well, you're sure. Gave us.

So That's quite sure.

That's quite obvious. I see you shaking your head. I know we need money.

Right. Thank you so yes, thank you. Yes, I really appreciate it.

Thank you for listening to me as I

go That's on and okay. Thank you so much for attending. We appreciate it and voicing your concerns. Any other questions online?

No. Okay. Thank you.

Great. Do any of the commissioners have questions for Doctor. Prather?

Thank you for always an amazing presentation. Are we there right now? Okay. I did have a question about the upcoming long term agreements. Could you cover what CAVU Air Commemorative Air Force and Waypoint Aviation, what is what is their scope? What what what do they do there?

So, yes, very good. I was trying to reverse to go back to that. The, CAVU is, one of the maintenance providers on the field, aircraft maintenance, providers. And they are, one of our several one of several aviation maintenance shops or aviation maintenance providers on the field. Let me see if I can go through that real quick and I'll bring those back up so that we can take a look at that.

Let's see where we are here. There we go. Waypoint Aviation, I'll skip down to Waypoint Aviation. They are also one of our maintenance providers, aircraft maintenance providers on the field. So typically, businesses on the field would would look for a a little bit of a longer term. Commemorative Air Force is the nonprofit that flies the D Day Dahl. You may have flown that or you've certainly seen that. They have a fairly large hangar and ramp space as well as museum and they're the ones that will be hosting our Aerospace Expo. So these are all businesses on the field. We would not enter into long term agreements with a private aircraft owner.

Those are month to month agreements. And we regularly update and bring in new tenants as space permits. So we do month to month for private aircraft owners. But for businesses, we typically do a longer term.

So when it comes down and just so I can better understand and the Commission better understand, there's maintenance, which would be like like mechanics.

Exactly. But

then is is one of these where so we have we have some some private jets there, but then there's also a cons concierge. What's that right word? The

The FBO is kind of a does everything. Typically the RFBO, the RAS Jetport does not really provide maintenance per se but they certainly provide fueling. They provide marshaling parking services, aircraft hangar services that sort of thing. And that's a separate agreement with them. They're on a long term agreement as well. But we have Cavu. We have Waypoint. We have Maintenance One. Those are our three maintenance shops or providers on the field. CBU does maintenance as well for their aircraft.

But they're technically in a through the fence agreement, which is a whole separate discussion. So their maintenance shop is their maintenance hangar is actually located off airport. I mean, it's literally adjacent to the airport, but we have a FAA approved through the fence agreement with them. It's a five year through the fence. So that's somewhat unique and a little bit different. But I hope that answers your question. But yeah, these are so so every aircraft has to at least have an annual inspection which requires a maintenance shop like this to be able to perform that annual inspection. And then, of course, if there are any we call them squawks, but any sort of mechanical issue or avionics issue or something needs to be addressed, they would take it to one of these maintenance shops to get that work performed.

No. I I in my opinion, it's it's an economic driver. They have to be there. Like, you can't have these not there. For sure. Was just curious of the what?

FBO.

FBO, which stands for?

Fixed based operator.

Fixed based operation. Those are also necessary too because of the size of some the Exactly. The facilities we have and the size of the aircraft we have there.

Those

are And and some FBOs economic

drivers.

For sure. And some FBOs have their own maintenance facility. RAS Jetport does not in that sense. They can do minor things, but for the most part, the aircraft that may utilize the FBO, if they need maintenance service, they would probably go to one of these maintenance shops on the field. It's up to the aircraft owner as to where to take their aircraft and what work needs to be done.

But, yeah, we we certainly rely on these valuable tenants because they they they further enhance the airport environment because we're not just a place to land airplanes and and buy gas. You can actually get your aircraft maintained. You can get new avionics. There's a number of things that you can do at Riverside Airport, which just provides more breadth of services for aircraft owners.

And so just to finalize, we also provide our tenants with options rather than monopoly like, hey, when there is a problem, you have to use this one. So they have options.

It's up to the aircraft owners and some quite frankly, they may fly to another airport to get maintenance performed in another airport and that's certainly well within their prerogative if they would like to do that. But yeah, it is good to have several maintenance providers on the field. It's not just one, it's several. And you know, it's a competitive environment. But they all seem to do quite well and some are very uniquely suited to Beechcraft aircraft versus Cessna and that sort of thing. They kind of have their niches as well.

Thank you. Sure.

Great. Thank you. And then also just to add to that, a visiting aircraft, if they have an issue, a maintenance issue, they have choices. So if you're here, then you don't have to fly your mechanic in from your airport, then you can have people on the airfield that can help you out, which is is always really helpful if you're a visiting pilot. Yes. Commissioner Del Pino.

Yes. Doctor. Prather, thank you. Thanks for the report. And thanks for looking into the whole Evitol thing. That's that's awesome. I'm personally excited about that. So, excited to hear what happens with that, as they're researching it more. But, I wanted to ask just about the Lyft as I I did hear about that. And also really, really excited about that because that's like a mold that's a multigenerational thing, kind of creating that pipeline, right, for future aviators in in the industry.

I know you said it's phase zero. Probably not a lot of details on it, but I just wanted to ask, what do you know? What is the goal? Obviously, besides the fact of creating a pipeline for talent in the future. But let's say for Riverside or for Steven or for you and for the airport, what's like what what would be the desire to see from this?

I honestly see this as a very strong workforce development program. It's education true and and it's bringing different educational institutions together. But at the end, I think it is a it is a strategic move by council member as well as these institutions to be part of the pipeline. So as we look at attracting eve tall operators as we look at developing the Westside and as we look at those sort of things you have to have the talent in the pipeline and these individuals seated around this table are control of that pipeline and not so many words right? So by bringing these institutions together rather than letting them kind of do their own thing over here, it's creating an umbrella and a very strategic way whether they're all housed in one building or not and what that looks like it's a little too early to say.

But I envision for example our service station former flight service facility, a 10,000 square foot building that's been vacant for decades. We're actually looking at that as a possible home for this lift and I see CBU students beside RUSD students, beside RCC students learning the business of aviation aeronautics whether they're flying, they're learning about management or scheduling or dispatching or whatever it might be, right? And it's the pipeline that's kind of being prepared under this umbrella at our airport, which is pretty significant. I think that we can all agree that these institutions are successful in their own right, but by bringing them together in collaborative manner, I think we can really create some synergies. Beyond that, it's a little too early to tell what it will eventually look like, but I think that's part of the of the goal here with Lyft.

Thank you.

Sure. Commissioner Lythouse.

Doctor Prather, a question about it has come up before where we talked about operations. We talked about fly overs and counting and not counting. And I suspect this is something that you thought of a long time ago, but I feel like I should ask it anyway because I know that the activity can have an impact on grant writing. So is there my my quick question is, is there some sort of a standard and I that that one is counted and reported as it relates to grant writing or not? Can you just speak to that?

Not so much grant writing as long as we maintain our FAA designated reliever categorization by the FAA. That's mostly what they're concerned about. The operational numbers, to be honest with you, really play more into our control tower and whether or not we can continue to justify a contract tower versus potentially at some point in the future converting to an FAA tower. These numbers really factor into that. I think it was probably ten years or so ago and I don't remember the exact date but the FAA at that time was looking at consolidating and even closing some contract towers And this was a significant part of that analysis.

Like what are your current numbers? What are your current operational counts? Because if operational counts, you know, were declining or were below a certain threshold, those would be the first towers to potentially lose funding. Unfortunately, no towers or I should say fortunately, no towers were closed during that initiative, but it was certainly being looked at pretty heavily. The airport manager at the time fought obviously against that and opposed any sort of effort to close the tower at Riverside Airport.

But because our numbers are still very significant, I mean, you can just go back ten years and we were below 100,000 operations a year. And that actually, Mike, may be something if you can help me remember to provide to the commission at the next meeting, we can provide you a ten year look back on our operational counts. It's actually pretty insightful. So I don't know that it necessarily impacts our grant funding when I apply for a FAA grant. There's really nowhere on the application where I specify the number of operations that we have.

We track this mainly just as a pulse on the airport to see how busy we are and how things are flowing because keep in mind, not every one of these aircraft would purchase fuel each day or, you know, every time they operated. But it does factor into fuel sales, which factor into fuel flowage fees, which factor in revenues back to the airport. So that's one of the reasons why we track these numbers so that we can just kinda see how that's going for the year because it can impact a bit of our bottom line, but not so much on the grant side.

So it is tracked. It's just not reported in some places and is in others. Is that what I'm hearing you say?

It's reported to the FAA, but not so much for the grant the grant Okay. Writing aspects. Yeah. Mostly just operational numbers related to how busy the tower is.

Got it. That's helpful. Thank you.

Yes, sir. Yes.

Sorry to take you back to the lift.

That's fine.

It's just something that popped into my head while commissioner DePanino was talking about it. May I may I just throw out the suggestion? Perhaps, you know, since we're in integrating students from Riverside School District as well as the local universities and the colleges, perhaps maybe a second or maybe invite the FBO that's on the field to kinda set up another FBO where the old FSS is at so that the students can have, like, a working business that they could work with, and they're learning and gaining experience as well as, you know, getting those resumes up to speed as they're transitioning from the school environment over into the workforce. I think it would it would also boost, you know, not just, not just the academics around this in the surrounding areas, but also the the economy involved at the at the airport itself. Maybe that's something that that might be brought up since they're still, like, in in phase zero.

That's something I thought about.

That's a great suggestion. And, actually, I think part of the plan is if we develop the West Side, there may be a second FBO that's part of that. And potentially, this flight service station facility may be shorter term home with more development on the West Side that could be a larger facility to to include an FBO. But all that remains to be seen. But, yes, certainly, I'll take that take that back for discussion.

Thank you.

Yes. Indeed.

So, doctor Fathers, I'm sorry. I went back to you said you helped Corona with their CTE. Was this around 2019?

It's been a while. Yes,

sir. So Yep. I I tore it was about 2019, and I'm a product of the it's not CTE anymore of Oh, good. Eric Lee, mister Lee, to be still. He is he's one of the reasons why I'm in the situation I am. So when I toured that in 2019, it was amazing. And I and I grew up in that area in the nineties, and they had so much aeronautics in that area. So I just wanna give you some props on that. That was amazing when I toured it. And so if you're bringing that that idea from 2019 here, I look very forward to it.

Oh, very good. Yeah. Thank you. We that was a con kind of a collaborative effort, a few airline pilots and myself. I was the chair of the aviation program at CBU at the time, and and they were looking for some subject matter experts to help kinda develop a curriculum as well as the types of, simulators and flight training devices and that sort of thing. They have a very successful, aviation program at Corona High School right now, which, yeah, it would be fabulous to to mimic that over here at RUSD. Thank you for that.

Great. Thank you so much, doctor Prather again.

Thank you.

And I'd really do encourage everyone, if you can go to Aero Expo this year. We displayed an aircraft there and I interacted with many many people from little people to very people in well into their adulthood that had never been near an airplane, a big airplane, a little airplane. They had never touched an airplane before. They'd never been inside of it and we talked about it and to doctor Prather's point of bringing people out to the airport and understanding that and I always like to say every pilot started out here.

For

sure. Even the big guys started out in these airplanes that are flying over Riverside. So we're helping educate the next workforce of pilots, of mechanics and all that. That's great. Okay. So we will I guess we do need a motion to accept the report. Okay. Is there a motion to accept the February 2026 airport manager's report?

I would like to put in the motion.

Okay. I'll second it.

Great.

Thank you. I have commissioner Tregaros for the first and commissioner Del Pino second the motion. We'll take a vote. Commissioner Gibbs? Yes. Commissioner Alderette? Yes. Commissioner Del Pino? Yes. And Commissioner Loft House?

Yes. Thank you.

Great. Our last item is item five. And second last, are there any updates on meetings attended by commissioners?

Okay. I think so. I'm sorry to chime in, but commissioner Del Pino did attend the art gala last Friday. You had a good time?

Yes, I did. As doctor Pathy was saying, it was really nice to see young people exposed to the airport. You know, they're not necessarily there for aviation purposes, but the airport being used as a, you know, community center. Parents were there. There were little goodies and everything. There's people from the city that was there as well. And the artwork was amazing. I mean, I'm by I don't know this girl, but I saw one. Was like, woah. This is great.

You know, she's she did such a I mean, of them did. Sorry. No offense to anyone who was there. But but but, anyways, yeah, you know, it was just to doctor Prather's point that the sometimes communities don't see the value of airports, especially with we know the Sears Building is gonna be used for building living spaces and stuff. And I think it's great when the community sees that there is a place for an airport and there's value in it, and it can be used as a communal space as well. So, yeah, it was great. I appreciate you guys doing that. And I live right next to Ramona High School. So I I don't recognize any the kids there, but I'm sure I would see them at some point again. So it's good.

Great. Thank you. Last item, item six, are there any items that commissioners would like to see on a future agenda? We can bring that up now or you can reach out to the airport to Mike or to Dan. Alright. With that yes.

The month? Next month we will have our chair and co chair election. Just a heads up, if anybody wants to put their name in the hat, next month think about it and we'll go from there. Thank you.

Great, thank you so much. Alright. And with that, we will the next airport commission meeting is 03/12/2026 and this meeting is adjourned at 03:57. Thank you.