Airport Authority takes no new action

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

Although the Van Wert County Regional Airport Authority Board took care of a number of items, rethinking its opposition to allowing a beer concession at the airport as part of the Wheels-N-Wings festival in May was not one of them.

The meeting, which was held in a small hangar rather than the usual upstairs meeting room to accommodate a group of about 30 spectators, largely dealt with routine airport matters, although a recent increase in fuel costs has Airport Manager Tom Dunno concerned.

“Our fuel prices are higher than they have been in a long time,” the airport manager said, noting that the airport, which used to be “a bargain” on its fuel costs, is now 30-40 cents higher than other area facilities.

Dunno said the airport is averaging a truckload of fuel per month, with fuel costs increasing 44 cents over the last few months.

Airport board secretary Mike Jackson noted that $1,195.87 was spent on fuel last month.

Board member Gary Corcoran noted that a recent airport audit was a clean one, with airport financial details handled properly.

Both Dunno and Larry Lee, executive director of the Van Wert Area Convention and Visitors Bureau – who are members of the committee organizing the Wheels-N-Wings festival, reported on the upcoming festival.

The airport manager noted that daytime activities for the festival are shaping up, especially with Van Wert Federal Savings Bank’s sponsoring of the Wright “B” Flyer – a replica of the original Wright Brothers airplane that made aviation history.

However, Dunno, Lee and other committee members are still trying to determine where a band contracted for the event will play, since it will have to be on private property to allow for beer sales – something Lee said is linked to the band’s performance.

Dunno said he had received 97 emails on the beer concession issue, with nearly all of those positive, while Airport Board Chair Clair Dudgeon set up a Facebook page that received more than 1,100 positive comments on having beer sales as part of the Wheels-N-Wings festival.

Dudgeon, who said he felt the Facebook comments showed “it turned into rather a large group of people who said ‘why not my things?’”

Corcoran objected to consideration of the Facebook comments, noting that he felt the board needed to decide issues without pressure from public comments.

“Do we post every public decision on Facebook and ask for public input before we vote on it?” Corcoran said. “There’s always be people for and people against.”

At least one board member was of the opinion that the beer concession issue is really one that Van Wert City Council needs to deal with, since it’s a city ordinance banning alcohol consumption on public property that is at the heart of the problem.

Council will be meeting Monday at 6 p.m. as a committee-of-the-whole to discuss the issue.

Lee, though, seemed to infer that public commentary may have already played a part in the decision to not allow beer sales at the airport – especially when it appeared there were no problems last fall when the airport board was informed of plans to have a beer concession as part of the festival.

“We came to you in October and laid all this out and there were no objections to the plans we gave you,” Lee told the airport board. “At that point, everybody was on board with it.”

Lee added that he had heard from some board members that pressure was put on them and their families to vote against the exemption allowing beer sales at the airport.

“There has been a lot of innuendo, a lot of scare tactics, and a lot of, well, I’d like to use the word ‘lobbying,’ but I tend to use the word ‘bullying’ … on all sides,” Lee noted.

Following discussion of the beer sales decision, Lee said one consideration in selecting a new location for the band and beer concession is to find someplace that has a hard surface to avoid problems if it rains before or during the festival.

Also attending the airport board meeting was Jeff Cramer, the airport’s engineering consultant, who brought agreements that would need to be concluded to allow burial of utility and other cables to eliminate a obstacle to planes landing at the airport.

Cramer also talked briefly about planned capital projects at the airport that are part of the board’s capital project list, while airport board member Randy Thompson reported on plans by a private individual to build a new hangar at the airport.

Cramer said he has not yet seen plans for the hangar, but noted that the board should submit a copy of the proposed 50-year lease planned with the hangar to get input from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to make sure that lease does not interfere with FAA grants and that the proposed location of the hangar is acceptable to the FAA.