ADDISON - The future of the Addison municipal airport is up in the air, as the Addison Town Council has begun the process of accepting quotes from those interested in either buying or leasing the property.
Shane Cook, attorney for the town, addressed Mayor Marsha Pigg and town council members at their April 21, meeting, recalling the issue had been presented to the Alabama Attorney General’s office for an opinion on how the issue should proceed.
Town officials have expressed they do not want the liability of the airport, but are concerned another person in control of the property may close the airport.
“Are we going to have to shut down the airport and deem it surplus property before we can do anything with it?” Cook began.
“What do you want to do?” Cook asked the mayor and council. “Do you want to shut down the airport? Do you want to keep it going?
“If you do shut it down, what do you want to do with the land?” Cook continued.
Cook gave the town options of selling or leasing the property or, “it can just sit there,” he said.
“Based on what you want to do, we’ll go forward, however we need to,” Cook stated.
“I recommend selling it, but it would be up to the council,” Pigg responded. “We might consider keeping it open for six months, and if somebody wanted to make us an offer on a lease or something for it…”
Pigg then asked the council for their input on the issue.
Council Member Scott Flynn suggested putting the airport up for lease and see what offers they might receive.
“That would give us time to notify the people we need to notify, concerning the aeronautical board and such as that,” Cook noted.
“If somebody decided they wanted to lease it, somebody wants to put together a package to lease it, totally up to you,” Cook added. “You have got the power to yay or nay a type of lease. It’s going to have to have a lot of liability (insurance) coverage, of course, as anything else would.
“We just need somebody to come to us, give us something in writing and we could always look at it,” Cook continued.
Randall Weisner, who was in the audience at the meeting, then spoke out with concerns and questions. Weisner owns a hangar on his property for his airplane and the town had granted him access to the airport from his property, Clerk Cindy Luker explained.
Weisner asked Cook to explain the liability insurance coverage he was talking about.
“You would have language in the lease where whoever is going to lease it, they are going to take it and cover us of all liability of any kind of incident or any kind of accident there, whether it be by airplane or somebody coming on (the property) messing around, getting on a four-wheeler or something,” Cook explained.
“That’s the reason to get out of the airport business, the liability. You can’t keep any kind of liability if you are going to lease it out,” Cook further explained. “You have got to be covered.”
“We had talked originally, many months ago, that we would be offered the lease,” Weisner pointed out. “Now, it sounds like you are going to be taking bids for a lease.
“What you said before was we would get a chance to lease it or buy it, if it went up for sale. To the people who surrounded the airport, we would get a chance to do that,” Weisner continued.
“Now, it sounds like you guys are going to open it up like the highest bidder for a lease is going to get it,” Weisner pointed out.
“We’ll give you a chance, if you want to make an offer,” Pigg responded. “You are saying you have six months to figure this all out.
“When you go to lease a house or whatever, the person who is going to lease the house has to go in and make a bid for that house,” Weisner stated. “I would think it would be up to you to tell me what you are going to charge for the lease and we’ll tell you if we are going to accept that term.
“Does that make sense to everybody?” Weisner asked the council.
Flynn responded, “From your perspective, yeah, but, from our perspective, if you said, ‘I’ll lease it for $50 a year for the next 10 years... it’s probably in the best interest of the town for us to...I mean, you to have the first opportunity.
“...If somebody is going to give (the property) away, I’d say give it to me, right?” Flynn continued.
“If we lease it, we are going to lease it to keep it an airport,” Pigg emphasized.
“If somebody wants to lease it, they can lease it as an airport,” Cook emphasized to Weisner. “If somebody wants to give us a written offer, if you want to do a written offer, give it to everybody and see if anybody wants to accept it. That’s fine.”
“You’ve got people who have bought 60 acres of land out there,” Weisner then stated. “We have people out there who are developing their land around the airport.”
“That’s the good thing about a lease,” Flynn stated. “It really protects both parties. It protects you, as an individual who lives there, who accesses it. It protects us, because we’re not just getting rid (of the airport) for nothing.”
“That’s why we’re trying to keep it an airport, so people can develop their property, bring their airplanes in here, and have a place to live and fly,” Weisner said.
“If it’s only a ten-year lease, then what’s going to happen at the end of ten years?” Weisner asked. “To get people to come and build around the airport, I don’t think they will be happy with a ten-year lease.”
“You are stewards of the town’s property,” Cook said. “You have got to keep the town in the best light, not somebody who is wanting to do other things that may be different to the town.”
Weisner again requested the council give him an estimated figure on what they would accept concerning a lease amount for the airport property.
“If we’re going to shut it down, that would give us time to get notices out and notify everyone,” Cook said.
Weisner stated the homeowners with property around the airport also did not “need to bankrupt ourselves trying to meet your requirements to keep this airport going.”
“We want to keep it going and we’ll do all we can to keep it going,” Weisner continued. “But a lot depends on the cost of the lease and the cost of the insurance.”
“You guys are going to have to give me a ballpark on what you’re looking for to make this work,” Weisner again advised the council.
“We don’t have to give you anything,” Cook returned. “We don’t have to give out any types of figures or anything like that.
“If you want to do the best you can do, put it in writing, submit it and see if we are going to go with it or not,” Cook added.
“So you guys are not going to give me a ball-park at all,” Weisner then said. “If I come in here and say I’ll give you $100 a year for it?”
“If we do that, then I’ll do $110 and I’ll use it,” Flynn said as an example. “It’s not in the best interest of the town to give it to one individual for nothing.
“It’s in the best interest of the town for you to give us whatever you think it’s worth,” Flynn continued.
“First of all, there’s no guarantee on what we are going to do,” Cook reminded. “We’re giving people a chance to keep it going the way it has been.”
“This has been going on for three years, folks,” Weisner pointed out. “It’s just getting less and less like you want us guys to stay here.”
Pigg responded the town was giving him an option to make the town an offer on the property.
“I’ll be happy to give you an offer,” Weisner responded. “I have just got to have some sort of idea of what would be acceptable to you guys.”
Pigg advised Weisner to submit his offer, “and we will go from there.”
“That’s what we want is for someone to lease it and keep it what it is,” Council Member George Palmer stated.
Council member Randy Powell, who has kept a plane at the airport since 2013, recalled the airport used to host fly-ins years ago as well as training for Wallace State and other counties.
“I hope however it works out, we can continue on, whether it’s leased or whatever. There’s so much stuff to be worked out with the city,” Powell stated.
“If somebody doesn’t lease it, then what are we going to do?” Powell asked. “I hope it stays an airport forever, where it will be active, if it’s possible.
“There is no income (to the airport.) Some feel it is dead weight,” Powell pointed out.
Background
The Alabama Attorney General’s opinion noted the town would have to declare the airport as surplus property, Cook informed the council last year.
“Once we do that, if it’s surplus property, it has to be shut down from the time we declare it surplus property,” Cook had informed.
“We’d have to shut it down first, then declare it (surplus property),” Cook added.
“Keeping it going as an airport, for whomever wants to buy that, they would have to start over, once it is shut down. It would have to be something that would be started back up by whoever purchased that,” Cook continued.
The town’s municipal airport, located off Sardis Airport Road, consists mainly of a grass strip and markings for small aircraft, according to Cook.
“(The town) decided that the liability of owning the airport basically overrides the public use of the airport,” Cook pointed out.
“They want to sell the airport, or get rid of the liability of the airport,” Cook added.
The Town of Addison acquired approximately 32 acres for the airport back in the 1970s, deeming it officially as the Addison Municipal Airport in 1986, recalled Powell.
The town purchased the land for the airport with some grant money, but only could develop a certain portion of it due to the limited amount of funding, town officials recalled.
The airport’s grass strip is about 3,200 feet long and 120 feet wide, according to Powell.
The airport currently houses five small aircraft, mainly single-engine planes, in hangars, which are on adjoining private property, town officials said.
The actual town’s ownership includes the grass strip area, they noted.
See complete story in the Northwest Alabamian.
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