This post is a comment moved from the post  RECORD KEEPING.

Just goes to show that Mo-Dot and the FAA have no intention of compliance to 5190.6b. 

If they educated the sponsors and helped them to comply, airports around the state would be thriving. It would be like taking a person off of the street and saying here's an airplane go figure out how to fly it and just do whatever you want.

Pilots and mechanics on the other hand are required to take an enormous amount of training and stay current with that training. The rule book is 3" thick and we are required to know every rule that pertains to the type of license we have. Safety is our number one concern. We play by the rules of the FAA for a reason, to stay alive and fly another day. We self comply to these rules because we have respect and integrity.

So is it the sponsors fault that the states airports are in shambles or is it Modot and the FAA for not doing their job as they do with pilots and mechanics?

The city of St Clair screams that the airport is loosing money but is the city collecting rent on the new subdivision that is using airport road (federal property) for its entrance? Free rent would be great anywhere. No where to be found in the record keeping. Is the city paying fair market value for the lift station? How much is it receiving for the cell phone towers in town? Really? how many low profile billboards could be erected in the safe zone along 44 at how much a month? $21,000 a year in hangar rent. Maybe they should open a bank with all the extra money they would bring in instead of closing the airport.

The only expenses are lights(with now some missing), grass cutting, snow plowing and some admin expenses. What is the real cost of the insurance?

Is it too much to ask that Mo-Dot, the FAA and the City of St Clair all just do their jobs, then make a decision to close the airport?

RECORD KEEPING

Now that municipal governments are sending their financial statements to the State Auditor’s Office, and they are available online, some interesting information can be obtained.  For instance, the city of St. Clair spends almost as much money to insure their airport as the city of Columbia Missouri, Which by the way has scheduled airline service.  Columbia Mo was also the only one out of the thirty that were looked at, that listed the rental income from farming leases.   

About half of the cities that were reviewed, listed their airport as a business type activity.  Others listed the airports as another account like streets and police.  One thing that they all did was to use traditional accounting for untraditional activities.  One auditor actually reported that the airport sponsor was in violation of a state statute, because the airport was not self sustaining. 

All of the audits of airports that have received Federal Funding recently, have shown the airports to be losing money.  Some of these audits also listed huge amounts of depreciation charged to the Federal Awards.  One auditor separated out capitol and operating expenses and this makes a huge difference.   Longer runways are being built all over the country, and are costing airports a lot of money, and sponsors are spending this money for several reasons.  One it is there, the money is out there for the asking.  The FAA thinks every airport should have longer runways with a minimum of 4000 feet.  Sponsors also think they will attract larger aircraft to their airport, sell more fuel make more money. 

So this capital improvement craze has cost some sponsors a lot of cash.  This also presents a situation!!  One of the auditors concluded that with the capitol improvement cost associated with the airport, hangar rent should be raised to offset the increased cost.  This brings up capitol vs. operating cost.  For example, an airport with thirty single engine aircraft and two twins, all capable of operating out of a 3000 foot runway.  The sponsor and the Feds want 4000 feet or more to attract the bis jets that they have seen at other airports with the long runways.  That’s fine, but don’t place the cost on the tenants that don’t need a longer runway.  Impose a landing fee on non tenants that need a 5000 foot runway. 

After reading about twenty or so audits of municipalities with airports, the conclusions are that there is no uniform method for airport finance reporting.  There is little to no experience in airport operations evident in these reports.  There is almost no evidence of knowledge of the FAR’s.   It would be impossible to get a clear and precise picture of the financial condition of any of the airports that were reviewed.  One exception was Lee’s Summit Missouri.   Lee’s Summit is an exceptionally well run operation, as should be a target for every other operator out there.

One other point here.  Agricultural lease and leases of airport property.  There appears to be a lot of airports that have farm ground that is being used for crop production.  If you are an airport tenant, and your airport has crop land around the airport, get the numbers from the sponsor.  Municipal governments that are airport sponsors that are not familiar with the FARs have tendency to deposit farm ground rent on airport property into their general fund.  Check them out. 

THE ST CLAIR PLAN

      

While dealing with the city, MODOT, and the Feds over the closing of the St. Clair Airport, we concluded that there was some invisible barrier that we were running into.  At first we thought it was just incompetence and laziness on the part of public employees who were charged with the protection of airports.  We heard “There is nothing we can do” hundreds of times, from everywhere.  We explained that if St. Clair is allowed to do this, it won’t be the last, but the beginning of bad things for a lot of airports. 

Interpretation of the law is changing.  If an airport had the potential to have ten tenants in so many years, it could be included in the NPIAS.  After talking to some aviation experts that will no longer be the rule.  Not only will an airport have to have ten tenants, they all can’t be Cessna 150’s.  There appears to be a movement to abandon the small outlying airports.  Go Big or Be Gone.   This appears to be the invisible barrier we were running into.  

The FEDs have published the following.  

The airport system should be extensive, providing as many people as possible with convenient access to air transportation, typically not more than 20 miles of travel to the nearest NPIAS airport.

Airports should be operated efficiently both for aeronautical users and the government, relying primarily on user fees and placing minimal burden on the general revenues of the local, state, and federal governments.

Airports should be permanent, with assurance that they will remain open for aeronautical use over the long term.

The FEDs will take this for an example, to mean that if a replacement airport were to be built for the close of St. Clair it must be 20 miles from Sullivan, Spirit, and Washington, and that means 20, not 19.5.  This is of importance, because a lot of the airport users in this area travel over 20 miles already.   

Travel by general aviation is not for everyone.  Soon it will not be for anyone.  The ability to travel not only the State of Missouri but anywhere by aircraft will be slowly and quietly disappearing.   

In the past many compliance issues were just overlooked, in order to distribute the trillions of dollars collected from airport users.  Now they are going to be used to genocide the smaller airports.  It appears that the FEDs did not just ignore the St Clair plan to destroy an airport, but they actually seem to have endorsed it, maybe even implemented it. 

I have access to al of the mission documents of the Leading Lady, it will take some effort to compile all of it.  I will do so if the is an interest from readers.  If so please comment.

AUTOPILOT

Looking back at the management decisions of the city in regards to the airport you have to wonder, what were these clowns thinking?

The results of the actions of the city demonstrate one very clear point; they cannot do the wrong things in the right way.  What are the wrong things?  The steady and steep rise in hangar rates that have led the airport into financial ruin is the most obvious.   When AirEvac was going to experience the same rate increase as the fixed wings, they left.  There are five tenants remaining, and the city is refusing to rent hangars.  The airport could easily be experiencing an income of over $20,000 a year, but it is more like $10,000 due to the management decisions of the city.  This is not difficult to understand, it is on the level of grades school math.  So this leads to the obvious conclusion that this must be intentional.  

One thing is very clear, the airport would be better off, and so would the city, if no one was managing the airport.  It would be costing the city less money to just let it go on by itself.  

The city has needlessly created a financial burden on the taxpayers; will this just be considered part of the cost of closing it?  The city claims that it is responsible to the taxpayers of St. Clair and there for are justified in its management practices.  The results of the city actions, demonstrates the lack of aviation knowledge, lack of understanding of the law, and the lack knowledge of just plain common sense and good business practices.  This may not be so much a lack of knowledge, but just an intentional disregard for them, to justify an end result. 

The St. Clair Airport has received national attention due to these management practices.  This blog is being read by eight FAA offices from Maine to California, the Department of Transportation in DC, and the DOJ in DC.   

The fact that the city would deliberately break the law to close the airport is not surprising, but what is surprising, and should be disturbing to the taxpayers of St. Clair, is that they probably thought that no one would notice. 

WHO IS GOING TO BUY IT?

All this has been said by the city, the mayor, or the local news publication at some time in the past.  It kind of started out like this.  

I have a developer standing by to develop the airport.

The city will make 2 million a year in sales taxes.

The airport will clear the way for much needed retail development in St. Clair.

When asked, what is plan “b” if plan “a” does not work?  Plan “b” is to make plan “a” work.  

We are going to sell the airport.  

We are going to market the airport.  

One thing is certain, if the city had a buyer, everyone would know about it.  

The tenants at the airport have been accused of holding the city hostage, this ludicrous propaganda, when in reality, the economic facts of the retail economy is holding the city hostage.  But look at Chesterfield!  The cold hard fact is, St. Clair is not Chesterfield.  The city can try and make plan “a” work, as much as it wants too, but the question still needs to be answered, what happens if the city cannot sell the airport?  

The passing of the St. Clair Airport closure law does not guarantee the closure.  But it does bring the question to the front of the issue.  Where is your buyer?  After almost ten years of trying to find a developer, one has to start to think that a shopping center in today’s retail climate is not going to happen.  

The closure process letter is dated April 7^th 2015, but, almost as month later, the local news publication is reporting that the city needs the closure process to continue.  The next move is up to the city, put up the money.

EXISTING TENANTS

(3) Existing Tenants. The City is responsible to develop a plan for the relocation of existing airport tenants to surrounding airports.

Let’s look at this.  From 5190.6b page 1-3 and 4.

The airport system envisioned in the first National Airport Plan, issued in 1946, has been

developed and nurtured by close cooperation between federal, state, and local agencies. The

general principles guiding federal involvement2 have remained largely unchanged for the

National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS); the airport system should have the

following attributes to meet the demand for air transportation:

The airport system should be extensive, providing as many people as possible with convenient access to air transportation, typically not more than 20 miles of travel to the nearest NPIAS airport.

I don’t think the FAA will accept a plan from the city that states the existing tenants will have thirty days to vacate.  What will an acceptable plan consist of?  Let’s look at the Washington Airport.  They recently built as many hangars as they could, due to real-estate restrictions, and they also have a waiting list.  Will the existing tenants at St. Clair be given preference over the people on that waiting list?  If not and there are five people on that list, will Washington need to build enough hangars for the waiting list and the existing tenants at St. Clair?  Washington probably has a capital improvement plan for the future, does that plan include new hangars for the St. Clair tenants?  Where will the real-estate for the hangars come from?  Will the Washington Airport have to amend its capital improvement plan?  How will St. Clair interact with the Washington Capital Improvement Plan?  What will the process entail for the Washington Airport to purchase more land, amend its future plans, and form a contract with St. Clair.  Will St. Clair have to provide funding for this process before the sale of the airport property?  Will St. Clair have to provide proof that it has the funds to carry out such a plan?  Will the placement of the St. Clair tenants take place after the capital improvement plan in place at Washington has been completed?  How long will that take?   Will the city receive enough from the sale of the airport to fund this kind of plan?  If they don’t receive enough, where will the money come from, the City of St. Clair?  Will the city be able to fund an acceptable FAA plan without having a buyer for the airport?  Even if the city does come up with a buyer, how will NEPA play out?

Does the city of St. Clair have an understanding of the complex nature of this kind of situation?